SH ARROW 


S  H  A  RR  O W 


BY 


BETTINA  VON  HUTTEN 

AUTHOR  OF 
"HE  AND  HECtTBA,"    "PAM,"   ETC. 


NEW    YORK 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
MCMXII 


COPYRIGHT,  1912,  BY 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Published,  May,   1912 


TO   MY  FRIEND 

ALEXANDER    P.   WATT,   ESQ. 

IN   MEMORY   OF   MUCH   KINDNESS 
I   DEDICATE   THIS   BOOK 

BETTINA  VON  HUTTEN 


Pollensa,  Mallorca 
December,  IQII 


2229174 


SHARROW 

PART   ONE 
CHAPTER  I 

OF  course,  the  staircase,  with  its  broad,  polished  balus- 
trade, and  the  dizzy  curves  of  its  immense  length,  was  a 
thing  of  mystery  and  glory  to  Sandy. 

To  climb  up  to  the  balustrade,  at  the  very  top  of  the 
house,  just  outside  Cook's  room  (otherwise  known  as  the 
Witch's  Cave),  adjust  yourself  nicely  on  your  stomach,  paw 
your  person  into  at  first  slow,  then  ever  increasing  mo- 
tion, and,  disregarding  the  pressure  of  buttons  on  sensitive 
parts,  fly  giddily  down,  flight  after  flight,  breathless,  ter- 
rified, full  to  the  brim  of  thrill  and  splendor — this  was 
life. 

Otherwise,  27  Guelph  Square  was  a  dull  house. 

It  was  possessed,  Sandy  knew,  of  several  noteworthy 
features,  such  as  Adam's  ceilings,  and  a  niche  painted  by 
Angelica  Kauf mann ;  but  features  never  interest  children :  it 
is  the  expression,  whether  of  people  or  of  houses,  that 
counts  with  them. 

And  the  expression  of  27  was  one  of  resigned,  middle- 
aged,  fat  dullness. 

It  was  even  conceivable  to  the  red-headed  little  boy's  im- 
agination  that  in  its  youth  the  house  had  been  slimmer 
and  taller;  that  advancing  age  had  spread  it,  as  it  had 
spread  Aunt  Martha  Timlow. 

1 


2  SHARROW 

It  also  had  a  strange  smell  that  never  changed.  Grown 
people  had  been  known,  on  discreet  approach  to  the  sub- 
ject, to  deny  the  smell,  but  grown  people  are  proverbially 
Bhort-nosed.  Sandy,  always  given  to  mental  classification, 
decided  that  27  smelt  of  damp,  and  boiled  vegetables,  and 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon — the  loneliest  hour  in  the 
twenty-four. 

The  rooms  were  high  and  shabbily  furnished;  they 
were  also  untidy,  and  only  comfortable  rooms  can  survive 
untidiness. 

There  were  tall  wooden  cabinets  filled  with  china ;  there 
was  a  large  china  monster  with  a  venomous  looking  red 
tongue  and  unnatural  purple  and  red  blotches  all  over  him, 
to  say  nothing  of  his  anatomy  being  perforated  by  gilt- 
edged  holes. 

This  was,  Sandy  knew,  A  Treasure. 

There  were  portraits  on  the  wall,  and  it  was  depressing 
to  realize  that  one  might  grow  to  resemble  one  of  them. 
Most  of  the  men  had  red  hair;  and  no  amount  of  imagina- 
tion could  delude  the  boy  into  believing  that  his  own  stiff 
locks  were  anything  but  of  the  reddest. 

Of  course,  if  one  grew  to  look  like  the  Old  Horror  over 
the  drawing-room  mantel-piece,  suicide  would  be  one 's  only 
resource.  On  the  other  hand,  the  one  known  as  "your 
Great-uncle  Frederic"  was  not  quite  so  bad. 

Sandy  was  once  disciplined  with  a  hairbrush,  on  a  very 
sensitive  place,  for  praying  that,  if  he  must  look  like  any 
of  the  Sharrows ',  God  would  be  so  polite  as  to  choose  Uncle 
Frederic  as  his  prototype. 

It  was  Bean  who  "disciplined"  him. 

Bean  was  his  nurse,  as  she  had  been  his  father's,  and, 
Sandy  suspected,  his  grandfather's,  too.  She  was  immor- 
tally old  and  as  cross  as  le  diable. 

At  27,  it  was  not  considered  courteous  to  use  bad  language 
in  English. 


SHAKROW  3 

Cook,  on  the  other  hand,  while  une  grue,  was  a  kind 
soul  who  made  very  small  tarts  in  a  heart-shaped  tin,  and 
smuggled  them  upstairs  in  her  apron  pocket,  wherein  also 
dwelt  her  keys,  her  handkerchief,  some  small  change,  and 
a  leaky  bottle  of  oil  of  eucalyptus.  Sandy  was  not  quite 
eight  when  he  found  that  he  had  for  some  time  recognized 
the  fact  that  the  two  little  boys  in  velveteen  who  frequently 
haunted  the  kitchen,  were,  though  bone  of  Cook's  bone, 
and  flesh  of  her  flesh,  none  the  less  non-existent  in  the  eyes 
of  the  law. 

He  also  knew,  though  the  source  and  hour  of  his  en- 
lightenment he  could  never  recall,  that  Lionel,  the  elder 
boy,  was  the  son  of  a  gentleman  (in  the  shop- walking  line), 
and  Milton,  the  cheerful  result  of  a  fleeting  fancy  on  Cook 's 
part  for  a  policeman. 

It  was,  Sandy  thought,  extremely  interesting  and  diversi- 
fying for  brothers  to  have  different  fathers,  and  never  to 
have  seen  either  of  them. 

Besides  Bean  and  Cook,  there  lived  at  27  Madame 's 
maid-parlormaid,  who  had  no  fixed  personality  because  she 
departed  every  few  weeks  to  be  replaced  by  a  new  one,  and 
Adolphe,  le  valet  de  Monsieur. 

Monsieur  et  Madame  themselves  could  hardly  be  called 
real  inhabitants,  for  they  were  constantly  away,  either  to- 
gether, or,  as  happened  once  in  a  while,  separately. 

Sandy  himself  was,  of  course,  the  kernel  of  the  universe, 
and  he  never  went  away. 

He  and  Bean  lived  in  a  large  room  at  the  back  of 
the  house,  a  room  whose  windows  overlooked  the  small 
back-yard  haunted  by  cats  and  sparrows. 

Sandy's  bed  had  eight  legs;  four  short  ones  on  which 
it  stood,  and  four  long,  curly  ones  stretched  ceilingwards. 
As  if  on  the  feet  belonging  to  these  latter  legs,  was  spread 
a  taut  canopy  of  faded  green  damask. 

This  bed  was  A  Treasure,  and  more  than  once  the  little 


4  SHARROW 

boy  had  been  roused  from  his  sleep  to  behold  Monsieur  et 
Madame  displaying  his  resting-place  to  a  guest. 

The  buffet  in  the  dining-room  was,  however,  the  greatest 
Treasure  of  all.  It  was  early  Georgian  and  something  in 
Sandy's  soul  ached  at  its  aspect.  It  was  to  him  painfully 
ugly.  It  reminded  him  of  funerals  and  other  heavy 
horrors. 

Who  can  describe  the  current  of  a  child 's  life  ?  The  days 
that  seem  hours,  the  hours  that  surely  must  be  days;  the 
rain  that  is  never  going  to  cease;  the  sunshine  that  has 
always  been  and  shall  always  be. 

Sandy  loved  the  autumn  and  winter  because  then  the 
lamps  were  lit  early,  the  fires  kept  him  company,  and 
Cook  liked  his  presence  in  the  kitchen. 

Spring  and  summer,  on  the  other  hand,  made  him  lonely. 
From  two  to  four,  any  day  in  the  year,  was  his  worst 
time;  but  on  warm  days  it  was  a  time  of  inexpressible  de- 
pression. 

He  always  seemed  to  have  a  headache  between  these 
two  hours,  even  when  he  knew  he  hadn't. 

Cook  understood  this  phenomenon  better  than  any  one 
else,  and  comforted  him  with  apples  and  stayed  him  with 
flagons  of  sweetest  milk  or  lemonade,  in  the  kindness  of  her 
disreputable  heart. 

Kittens  multiplied  amazingly  at  27.  Sandy  disliked  them 
with  intensity,  but  Cook  forced  from  him  a  certain  grudg- 
ing kindness. 

"You  'adn't  ought  to  pull  their  tails,"  she  explained, 
her  shiny  red  face,  with  its  pretty  dimples,  serious  with 
her  educational  purpose.  "  'Oo  made  'em?" 

' '  God, ' '  returned  Sandy  promptly  with  an  air  of  render- 
ing unto  Caesar.  ' '  Of  course  he  did. ' ' 

"Well,  then!" 

This  was  Cook's  expression  of  convinced  triumph.  She 
said,  "Well,  then,"  to  nearly  everything.  Cook  knew  she 


SHARROW  5 

was  une  grue ;  Sandy  told  her  so  once  when  they  quarreled. 

But  either  she  didn't  know  what  the  word  meant,  or 
she  didn't  at  all  mind  being  one. 

Adolphe  despised  Cook,  and  had  no  converse  with  her, 
so  he  certainly  did  not  elucidate,  but  on  future  occasions 
Cook  was  known  to  apply  the  word — transmuted  in  the 
crucible  of  her  accent  into  "groo" — to  other  people,  not- 
ably to  Monsieur,  whom  she  hated. 

"You  mustn't  say  Monsieur  is  a  grue,"  Sandy  told  her 
one  day,  as  he  sat  by  the  stove  eating  some  warmed-up 
veal  gravy  and  a  lump  of  bread.  "He's  my  father." 

And  Cook,  a  prey  to  her  own  facile  emotions,  wept  and, 
pressing  his  face  to  her  ample  bosom,  impaled  his  nose  on 
a  pin. 

Sandy  knew  that  Cook  was  kept  on  in  spite  of  her  gruism 
because  she  was  the  one  woman  in  Great  Britain  who  could 
make  good  sauces. 

And  he  knew  that,  although  'E  was  a  groo,  and  she  an- 
other as  bad,  Cook  stayed  on  for  love  of  the  poor  child,  the 
poor  child  being  himself. 

But  he  never  mentioned  Monsieur's  opinion  to  Cook,  nor 
Cook's  to  Monsieur. 

The  real  peculiarity  of  the  house  was  that,  while  no 
two  of  its  inhabitants  liked  each  other,  they  stuck  to  each 
other  for  reasons  of  convenience.  And  this  Sandy  knew. 

Even  his  father  and  mother  quarrelled;  his  father  and 
Cook  quarrelled  continually;  Cook  and  Bean  quarrelled; 
Bean  and  Adolphe  quarrelled ;  and  yet  the  maid-parlor- 
maid's  was  the  only  position  occupied  by  a  different  indi- 
vidual every  few  weeks.  The  others  stayed.  And,  of 
course,  he,  Sandy,  stayed. 

How  Aunt  Martha  Timlow  came  to  be  Sandy's  aunt, 
Sandy  did  not  know.  She  was  unmarried,  so  to  be  his  aunt 
she  should  have  been  either  a  Sharrow  or  a  Vautrec.  And, 
far  from  being  a  Vautrec,  she  was  not  even  French. 


6  SHARROW 

Periodically  she  appeared  and  stayed  for  what  might 
have  been  weeks,  or  months. 

She  filled  all  her  time  giving  instructions  to  Sandy  about 
God.  Sandy  heard  about  God  at  breakfast  (Monsieur  and 
Madame  apparently  lived  without  breakfast,  but  Aunt 
Martha  lined  her  great  person  every  morning  with  layers 
and  layers  of  buttered  toast  soaked  in  tea)  ;  all  the  morn- 
ing he  was  instructed  as  to  the  nature  of  God's  malice; 
the  afternoons  were  given  over  for  instances  of  God's 
fiendish  ingenuity  in  the  matter  of  vengeance ;  and  at  tea 
God's  delight  in  the  destruction  of  His  creatures  was  de- 
picted with  all  Aunt  Martha's  skill. 

But  by  supper  time  Sandy's  incipient  fears  were  extin- 
guished by  sheer  boredom. 

' '  You  must  love  God, ' '  Aunt  Martha  once  said,  far  back 
in  the  years,  so  far  back  that  her  disciple  was  eating  bread 
and  milk  out  of  a  bowl  with  a  spoon. 

Sandy  looked  at  her,  his  small  three-cornered  eyes  with 
their  thick,  dusty-looking  lashes  full  of  bored  politeness. 

"Why?"  he  asked. 

Then  when  Aunt  Martha  went  away,  God,  it  seemed,  went 
with  her,  for  no  one  in  the  house  ever  mentioned  Him, 
though  Adolphe  frequently  referred  to  an  apparently 
secondary  Deity  of  cheerful  habits,  called  le  bon  Dieu 

For  years  Sandy  thought  that  God  and  le  bon  Dieu 
were  quite  different  persons. 


CHAPTER  II 

MADAME  was  standing  before  her  cheval  glass,  and  her 
blue  satin  frock  was  being  laced  up  the  back  by  the 
maid-parlormaid. 

Sandy  sat  on  the  floor,  his  legs  crossed  under  him.  It 
was  the  autumn  of  1874  and  he  was  thirteen  years 
old. 

He  was  a  big-boned,  ungainly  child,  as  all  the  Sharrow 
children  are,  however  far  removed  from  the  burly  parent 
stem.  His  violently  red  hair  was  already  beginning  to  tone 
down  to  that  duller  tawniness  characteristic  of  the  family, 
and  his  strangely-set  gray  eyes,  deep  under  the  bumpy, 
hairless  brows,  were  the  noticeable  feature  of  his  white 
face. 

"Dieu,  que  tu  es  laid!"  Madame  observed,  glancing  at 
him  as  she  polished  her  nails  on  the  palms  of  her  hands. 

Sandy  grinned  at  her. 

Not  his  the  sensitiveness  of  many  ugly  children.  Very 
logically  he  blamed  those  Old  Horrors  on  the  drawing-room 
walls  for  his  lack  of  beauty. 

"If  you  had  been  a  girl,"  his  mother  went  on,  smiling 
at  him,  "I  should  have  had  to — overlay  you.  While  you 
were  very  little,  I  mean.  It  matters  less  in  a  boy." 

Sandy  liked  her  frock  with  its  soft,  full  skirt  over  which 
an  absurd  little  transparent  overskirt  was  draped.  He 
liked  the  round  tucker  with  its  narrow  black  velvet  draw- 
string. 

She  had  the  smoothest  of  ivory-colored  arms  and  neck, 

7 


8  SHARROW 

and  her  face,  with  its  curious  purple  mark  on  one  cheek, 
fascinated  him,  as  it  always  did. 

"Give  me  the  rouge,  Henderson." 

This,  of  course,  he  loved.  The  round  box,  the  hare's 
foot,  the  slow  disappearance  of  the  ugly  mark  under  its 
application,  the  lovely  pink  glow  on  Madame 's  white  skin! 

She  was  quite  justified  in  rouging,  even  her  enemies 
admitted,  poor  soul !  the  birthmark  was  so  very  disfiguring. 
Once,  on  being  asked  what  the  birthmark  was,  his  mother 
had  told  her  child  that  he,  as  a  baby,  had  bitten  her  face. 
She  had  never  thought  of  her  little  joke  again,  but  he  had 
never  forgotten  it.  He  was  deeply  sorry  to  have  injured 
Madame. 

' '  There— that 's  enough  ? ' ' 

'Yes,  Madame,"  returned  Henderson  primly.  She  dis- 
approved of  rouge  and  liked  her  mistress  to  know  that  she 
did. 

"Is  Monsieur  ready?" 

"I'll  go  and  see,"  announced  Sandy  eagerly,  scrambling 
to  his  feet. 

Both  his  father  and  mother  had  been  away  for  several 
weeks,  and  only  just  got  back.  It  was  delightful  to  have 
them  again. 

Monsieur,  who  had  finished  dressing,  was  sitting  at  the 
piano  in  his  bedroom  when  Sandy  entered.  The  situa- 
tion of  the  piano  was  not  stranger  than  many  other  things 
at  27. 

Monsieur  played,  Madame  did  not,  and  hated  music, 
so  what,  to  either  of  them,  more  natural  than  the  presence 
of  the  little  Broad  wood  opposite  Monsieur's  bed. 

"  'Allo,  son!" 

"Bon  soir,  Monsieur,"  returned  Sandy,  courteously. 
"Madame  is  ready — if  you  are?" 

Sydney  Sharrow,  a  red-headed  man  very  like  his  son, 
smiled.  He  had  a  delightful  smile  that  showed  many  white 


SHARROW  9 

teeth.  He  loved  his  son,  in  his  own  way,  and  the  child's 
gift  of  unconsciously  amusing  him  was  very  endearing. 

"Are  you  always  going  to  call  us  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame?" he  asked. 

Sandy's  eyes  fixed  themselves  on  his  father's. 

"Shall  I— not?" 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  It  was  charming  when  you  were 
a  little  kid,  but  you  are,  let  me  see,  eleven  now,  aren't 
you?" 

"Thirteen." 

"Bless  my  soul,  so  you  are.  And  I  told  the  Old  Chief 
yesterday  that  you  were  eleven.  "Well,  so  much  the  better. ' ' 

"How?"  Sandy  inquired. 

' '  Oh,  nothing.  Or,  yes,  I  might  as  well  tell  you.  You  are 
invited  to  Sharrow  to  visit  your  great-uncle  and  the  rest  of 
the  tribe.  You  are  to  go  next  week. ' ' 

Sandy  did  not  answer.  He  had  never  been  away  from 
home  in  his  life,  except  for  a  fortnight  at  Eastbourne, 
where  Bean  had  a  sister,  every  August.  He  felt  suddenly 
curiously  rooted  in  Guelph  Square.  He  felt  as  a  mandrake 
might  be  supposed  I  o  feel  before  the  approaching  hand  of 
the  uprooter  has  as  yet  touched  it. 

""Well,  aren't  you  glad?"  asked  his  father,  surprised 
by  his  silence. 

"Yes — no — I  don't  know.    Is  it — a  nice  place?" 

Sydney  Sharrow  laughed  aloud. 

"  Is  it  a  nice  place  ?  Sharrow  ?  My  dear  son,  surely  you 
are  the  first  creature  with  a  drop  of  Sharrow  blood  to  ask 
that  question.  It's — it's  Sharrow." 

"Is  it  pretty?" 

His  father  struck  two  chords  on  the  piano,  his  bushy, 
blonde  brows  drawn  together.  Then  he  rose. 

' '  I  have  neglected  my  duty, ' '  he  said,  taking  the  boy  by 
the  shoulder.  "This  ought  never  to  have  happened. 
Come." 


10  SHARROW 

They  went  to  the  drawing-room,  where  Adolphe  had 
already  lit  the  big  oil-lamps.  In  a  corner  behind  the  door 
hung  a  small  water-color  drawing  of  a  vast  old  house 
among  trees. 

"That's— it." 

Sandy  felt  that  he  was,  in  the  French  sense,  assisting  at 
a  scene.  His  father's  voice  was  strange. 

' '  Have  you  seen  this  picture  before  ? ' ' 

"Yes." 

"Well?" 

Then  Sandy  looked  up  at  him.  "I  have  often  seen  the 
picture,"  he  said,  slowly,  "but — I  never  thought  it  was  a 
real  place." 

"Oh!    What  did  you  think  it  was?" 

"I  thought — it  was — just  a  picture.  An  imaginary 
place. ' ' 

Sydney  Sharrow  burst  out  into  a  rough  laugh. 

"And  so  it  is — for  me,  and  for  you.  As  imaginary  a 
place  as  if  the  painter  had  made  it  up  out  of  his  own 
head."  He  paused,  his  hand  pressing  heavily  on  the  boy's 
shoulder.  "And  all,"  he  went  on,  "because  of " 

"Because  of  what?" 

"Never  you  mind,  my  dear.  The  place  is  nothing  to 
us,  but  you'll  have  a  good  month  there  with  your  cousins. 
And  the  Old  Chief  shall  see  that  what  I  told  him  is  true — 

Ah,  here's  Antoinette "  He  broke  off  and  turned  to 

the  doorway,  in  which  stood  his  beautiful  wife  wrapped  in 
a  delicate  white  crepe  shawl. 

His  manner  toward  her  when  they  were  not  quarrelling, 
was  always  admirable.  And  Sandy  admired.  When  he 
had  kissed  his  mother  good-by,  he  turned  to  his  father; 
something  had  happened  between  them;  he  did  not  know 
what  it  was,  but  it  bore  fruit  in  his  next  words. 

"Good  night— Father." 


SH ARROW  11 

"Tiens!"  cried  his  mother  gayly,  "how  you  are  grown 
up!  Are  we  no  longer  to  be  Monsieur  et  Madame ?" 

' '  Hush,  my  love, ' '  her  husband  said,  offering  her  his  arm, 
"he  is  quite  right.  It  is  right  that  he  should  call  me 
father." 


CHAPTER  III 

IT  was  raining  hard  as  the  carriage  drawn  by  the  im- 
mense bay  horses  turned  into  the  avenue. 

Sandy  leaned  out  of  the  open  window  and  gazed  into  the 
vast  darkness.  It  was  not  yet  five  o'clock,  but  the  day 
was  of  the  blackest  and  under  the  old  trees  it  seemed  like 
night. 

The  avenue  was  broad  and  very  smooth,  the  carriage 
proceeded  as  noiselessly  as  carriages  could  before  the  days 
of  rubber  tires. 

Sandy's  red  head  bobbed  from  window  to  window  as 
he  tried  to  see  his  surroundings. 

Since  the  evening  when  he  had  been  shown  the  picture, 
his  father  had  not  mentioned  Sharrow  to  him,  yet  somehow 
he  seemed  to  have  learnt  in  the  interim,  much  about  it. 
A  seed  had  apparently  been  sown  in  his  brain,  and  in  the 
silence  it  had  grown. 

He  was  coming  not  only  to  a  house,  to  a  place,  but  to  a 
new  mental  life.  He  was  walking  into  a  new  set  of  feelings, 
the  feelings  that  made  his  jolly,  careless  father's  voice  so 
different  when  he  talked  of  the  place. 

It  was,  as  his  father  had  said,  Sharrow;  and,  young  as 
he  was,  the  boy  was  himself  a  Sharrow,  and,  therefore, 
though  he  did  not  know  why,  the  name  meant  to  him 
many  things  besides  this  beautiful  old  house  the  windows  of 
which, were  beginning  to  gleam  at  him  through  the  naked 
trees. 

The  carriage  skirted  a  long  lake,  its  lamps  giving  glimpses 

12 


SHARROW  13 

of  its  sedge-grown  shore,  sped  on  for  five  minutes  longer, 
and  then  stopped. 

Not  a  door,  but  an  ancient  iron  gate  was  opened,  light 
streamed  out,  and  Sandy  was  led  by  an  old  servant  under 
a  low  cupolaed  tower  into  the  courtyard. 

Now  there  is  much  charm   in   an  old  courtyard,   and 
Sandy  was  one  of  those  fortunate  people  whose  feelers 
are  always  out  like  invisible  tentacles,  ready  to  close  on 
things  beautiful,  and  sad,  and  charming,  and  to  make  them  ' 
part  of  their  own  lives. 

In  the  dramatic  red  light  of  two  torches  stuck  into 
iron  rings  on  the  walls,  Sandy  stood  and  looked  around 
him.  The  courtyard  of  Sharrow  was  henceforth  to  be 
a  part  of  his  memory,  hence  of  his  mind,  hence  of  him- 
self. 

The  front  of  the  house  was  said  to  have  been  restored, 
after  the  wars,  when  Henry  the  Seventh  was  king;  but 
the  rest  of  the  house,  except  for  some  additions  invisible 
from  the  courtyard,  was  older,  part  of  it  presumably 
Saxon. 

Archaeologists  differed,  as  archaeologists  will,  about  the 
different  dates,  but  that  did  not  matter. 

The  quadrangle,  very  irregular  in  character,  with  win- 
dows round,  and  windows  square,  roofs  of  various  heights, 
and  chimneys  of  several  distinct  kinds,  had  yet  grown  with 
time,  mellowed  like  a  great  fruit,  into  a  most  perfect 
whole.  Mosses  and  lichens,  soft  as  whispering  voices,  lent 
color  to  its  old  stone;  the  sun  and  rain  of  centuries  had 
blurred  the  dividing  lines  till  all  looked  equally  old,  equally 
ripe.  And  opposite  the  gate  where  Sandy  had  come  in  was 
the  door  of  the  great  hall. 

The  door  frame  of  mellow  stone  was  immensely  high,  and 
rich  with  carving.  In  the  center,  at  the  top,  stood  the 
Griffin  holding  the  coat  of  arms. 

By  some  freak  of  the  newly-risen  wind,   the  light  of 


14  SHARROW 

the  nearer  torch  suddenly  flared  upwards,  drawing  with  it 
the  eyes  of  the  little  boy.  He  knew  the  coat  of  arms,  for 
it  was  on  his  father's  watch,  and  on  various  other  things, 
but  here  it  was  so  large  that  for  the  moment  it  seemed 
to  him  the  largest  thing  in  the  world.  He  perhaps  could 
not  see  the  words  "Ce  que  Charreau  possede,  Charreau 
garde,"  but  he,  of  course,  knew  them  to  be  there,  and  they 
flashed  at  him  as  the  red  light  danced  down,  leaving  them 
in  darkness. 

The  exterior  of  the  great  hall  was  of  small  red  bricks, 
faced  with  warm-colored  stone,  and  when  the  servant,  who 
had  a  cold  in  his  head,  sneezed  violently,  and  opened  the 
great  door  with  meaning,  Sandy  followed  him  meekly  into 
a  beautiful  Jacobean  hall. 

It  reached  to  the  roof,  and  was  lighted  by  three  large 
oil  lamps.  Opposite  the  door  a  fire  glowed  under  an  im- 
mense stone  chimney-piece. 

Sandy  looked  up  and  saw  oak  rafters  and  darkness.  He 
looked  to  his  right  and  his  left  and  saw  oak  paneled  walls 
empty  of  all  pictures,  but  hung  with  curious  old  bits  of 
armor. 

He  saw  four  high  windows  with  small  panes. 

He  saw  no  carpet,  but  deer  skins;  he  saw  a  long  black 
table  and  several  uncomfortable  looking  black  chairs. 

"Aren't  there  any  pictures?"  he  asked  the  servant.  It 
was  the  first  word  he  had  spoken. 

"No,  sir,"  the  man  answered.  "The  pictures  are  in 
the  picture  gallery." 

Then  Sandy  was  led  up  an  absurd  little  twisted  stairway, 
down  a  long  passage  (everything  made  of  wood,  no  wall- 
paper anywhere  to  be  seen,  and  no  carpets,  which  he 
thought  very  strange),  and  then  the  servant  paused,  blew 
his  nose  on  a  handkerchief  that  struck  Sandy  as  extremely 
large,  and  knocked  at  a  door. 

The  old  lord  sat  by  the  fire  in  a  room  which  was,  un- 


SHARBOW  15 

expectedly,  all  white,  with  garlands  of  carved  fruit  on  the 
walls,  and  some  dark  pictures  set  into  the  panels. 

When  the  door  opened  and  his  young  guest  came  in 
unattended,  as  had  been  arranged,  the  old  man  looked  at 
him  steadily  before  he  spoke. 

Then  he  laughed.     "Another  red-head!"  he  said. 

Sandy  laughed,  too.     "Yes,  sir." 

"Well,  well,  come  in.  Yes,  your  father  was  right.  It's 
a  strong  type,  a  very  strong  type,  as  you  will  see  when 
your  cousins  come  in." 

"How  many  are  there?"  asked  Sandy. 

"Three.  And  all  of  'em  healthy.  Your  father  would 
have  been  too  clever  to  ask  that." 

The  old  man's  fat  red  face  was  full  of  malice.  He 
looked  very  evil  in  the  firelight.  Then,  having  met  Sandy 's 
stare  of  blank  non-comprehension  for  a  full  half  minute,  he 
smiled  and  looked  like  an  old  bald-headed  cherub. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  quietly.    "Sit  down." 

Sandy  obeyed.  To  him  the  gentleman  opposite  was  only 
another  Old  Horror  as  ugly  as  le  diable,  a  possible  fu- 
ture resemblance  to  whom  was  a  thing  to  be  prayed 
against. 

"Did  your  father  tell  you  that  when  he  came  here  the 
other  day,  he  came  for  the  first  time?"  pursued  the  uncon- 
scious Old  Horror. 

"No." 

"Aha!  Close-mouthed!  Well,  we're  all  that.  So  I 
gather  you  know  nothing  whatever  about  your  great-grand- 
father?" 

Sandy  nodded.  "Oh,  yes,  I  do.  We  have  a  portrait 
of  him;  he's  the  ugliest  of  the  lot " 

"I  see." 

Suddenly  Lord  Sharrow  appeared  to  tire  of  the  con- 
versation, and  rang  the  bell  by  the  chimney-piece. 

The  door  was  immediately  opened  by  a  perfectly  oiled 


16  SHARKOW 

automaton  in  the  shape  of  a  servant  in  plain  clothes,  who 
was  sent  for  the  young  gentlemen. 

There  was  a  long  unbroken  silence,  and  then  the  young 
gentlemen  came  in.  Alexander,  aged  sixteen;  Keith,  aged 
fourteen;  and  Paul,  their  cousin  as  well  as  Sandy's,  aged 
twelve — Sharrows  in  their  red-headed  ugliness,  all  of  them. 

Sandy  shook  hands  with  them  and  answered  one  or  two 
jerky  questions. 

Then  the  old  man,  whom  the  other  boys  addressed  as 
Grandfather,  rose. 

"Sandy,  you  come  with  me,"  he  began,  and  Sandy, 
darting  forward,  cannoned  into  his  eldest  cousin.  "Ah, 
I  forgot,  you  are,  of  course,  Sandy,  too,"  commented  Lord 
Sharrow. 

' '  Is — is  he  Sandy  ? ' '  our  boy  asked,  rubbing  his  shoulder. 

' '  He  is  my  heir ;  we  are  all  Sandys, ' '  was  the  dry  answer. 
Then,  nodding  to  the  two  boys  to  follow  him,  the  old  man 
left  the  room. 

Down  the  oak-paneled  passage  they  went,  up  a  broad, 
shallow  staircase  whose  every  step  was  worn  to  a  deep 
hollow,  and  into  the  largest  room  Sandy  had  ever  seen.  It 
was  the  picture  gallery,  and  unlighted  but  for  one  big  lamp 
standing  near  the  door  and  throwing  across  the  floor  a  yel- 
low arrow  of  light. 

Lord  Sharrow  took  the  lamp  and  went  slowly  along  to  the 
left. 

Presently  he  stopped  and  held  up  the  lamp  so  that  its 
light  flooded  one  picture. 

"Quiche!"  ejaculated  Sandy.  The  Old  Horror  in  ques- 
tion was  so  very  much  uglier  than  any  of  the  others.  A 
big  Old  Horror  this,  in  steel  armor  from  top  to  toe,  his  red 
hair  the  only  bit  of  warm  color  in  the  picture. 

"I  suppose  you  don't  know  who  this  is?"  Lord  Shar- 
row's  eyes  were  very  keen  as  he  put  the  question. 

' '  It 's — it 's  one  of  the  family  right  enough. ' ' 


S  H  A  K  R  O  W  17 

"It  is  the  Marquis  de  Charreau,  the  first  of  the  family 
to  settle  in  England.  And, ' '  continued  the  old  man,  ' '  when 
you  are  his  age  you  will  be  the  living  image  of  him." 

It  was  rude  of  the  other  Sandy  to  administer  at  this 
juncture  a  sharp  kick  to  his  cousin.  Our  Sandy,  red  with 
pain,  made  a  face  which  his  great-uncle  saw. 

"You  so  dislike  looking  like  him?"  he  asked. 

Sandy  laughed.  "No,  sir — but — well,  he  isn't  pretty, 
is  he?"* 

Lord  Sharrow  chuckled.  "No.  Not  pretty.  Now  run 
away,  you  two,  and  make  friends — or  enemies — of  each 
other." 

He  himself  did  not  appear  at  dinner,  and  on  Sandy's 
asking  where  he  was,  Paul  answered  casually  that  most 
probably  he  was  drunk. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LORD  SHAEROW  was  a  very  rich  man  and  he  was  a  Shar- 
row  to  the  innermost  depths  of  his  wicked  old  being. 
That  means  that  he  adored  not  only  every  stone  and  every 
inch  of  oak  in  his  wonderful  house,  but  also  every  earth- 
worm on  the  estate.  "Was  not  the  earthworm  full  of  Sharrow 
soil? 

Young  Paul,  the  delicate  cousin  whose  family  character- 
istics seemed  somehow  faded  (his  hair,  for  example,  was 
pink,  instead  of  red,  his  eyes  less  three-cornered  than  those 
of  the  others,  his  ears  less  pointed),  told  Sandy  all  about 
the  family. 

Paul  lisped,  because  his  tongue  seemed  a  little  too  big 
for  his  mouth.  Sandy  did  not  like  him  as  much  as  he 
liked  the  brothers,  but  Paul  liked  him  so  they  were  much 
together. 

"The  fearful  old  creature  in  armor,  the  one  I  am  so 
like,  he  was  the  first,  wasn't  he?"  Sandy  asked  others  for 
information. 

"Not  he.  Noah  was  the  first.  A  French  Noah,  I  sup- 
pose. Lor '  but  we  're  an  old  family !  You  see,  De  Charreau 
was  the  cadet  of  an  old  French  tribe,  and  he  ran  away  and 
married  somebody.  Then  his  governor  disinherited  him, 
and  when  King  John  took  Angers,  this  chap  was  made  a 
prisoner.  Somehow  or  other  he  got  round  the  king  (a 
pretty  rum  pair  they  were,  I  gather),"  added  the  learned 
Paul  sagely,  "birds  of  a  feather — so,  as  Charreau  was  dis- 
inherited, his  wife  came  over  to  England,  and  King  John 
gave  him  a  house,  and  he  stayed." 

18 


SHARKOW  19 

"Was  this  the  house?" 

' '  Yes.  Only,  of  course,  it  was  different  then.  Well,  they 
say  he  murdered  his  wife — at  all  events,  she  died  and  he 
married  someone  the  King  told  him  to — she  had  money, 
and — here  we  are!" 

' '  I  wonder, ' '  Sandy  said,  dreamily,  ' '  if  he  had  red  hair. ' ' 

"I  suppose  so.  Oh,  I  know  lots  more  about  'em.  I'll 
tell  you  some  day.  He  was  a  duke's  son — in  France,  and 
in  Henry  the  Fifth's  time  his  descendant  went  to  France 
with  Henry  and  married  one  of  Katherine's  ladies-in- 
waiting.  ' ' 

The  two  boys  were  sitting  in  what  was  called  the  Small 
Hall,  a  wonderful  oak  room.  The  oak  on  the  inner  wall, 
in  its  austere  linen-fold  pattern,  was  bleached  by  cen- 
turies of  sunlight  to  a  pale  straw  color;  that  opposite,  be- 
tween the  window  and  around  the  big  fire-place,  was  nearly 
black. 

This  peculiarity  of  coloring  delighted  Sandy,  though  he 
could  not  have  told  why,  and  the  bare  room  was  his  favorite 
of  all  in  the  house. 

To  an  unseen  spectator — the  putative  fly  on  the  wall — 
the  scene  presented  much  charm.  A  big  fire  burned  on  the 
hearth,  and  through  the  small  leaded  panes  of  the  three 
windows  poured  a  pale  December  sun. 

On  the  floor,  at  equal  distances  from  the  windows,  lay 
blotches  of  purple  and  amber  light — that  which  came 
through  the  jewelled  glass  at  the  tops  of  the  windows. 
There  were  no  rugs,  but  several  well-worn  old  deer  skins 
lay  on  the  floor. 

There  were  no  books,  no  flowers,  no  stuffs  of  any  kind. 
It  was  not  really  a  room,  it  was  a  hall.  It  was  just  what 
it  had  been  for  centuries. 

And  the  two  red-headed  boys,  eating  nuts  by  the  fire  as 
they  solemnly  discussed  their  ancestry,  fitted  well  into  the 
scene. 


20  SHARROW 

"It  was  my  great-grandfather,  then,  whom  your  grand- 
father says  wasn  't  married  ? ' ' 

"Yes." 

"But  that's  all  rot,"  returned  Sandy,  inspired  by  re- 
membrances of  Cook  and  her  offspring.  "  If  he  wasn 't  mar- 
ried, then  we  shouldn't  be  Sharrows  at  all." 

"Well,  you  aren't.  I  mean  to  say,"  rectified  Paul, 
"we  say  you  aren't." 

' '  Oh.    And  we  say  he  was — married  ? ' ' 

"Exactly." 

"And — if  he   was,   then " 

' '  Oh,  if  he  was,  then  your  governor  would  be  Lord  Shar- 
row,  you  see,  and  you,  my  lovely  cousin,  his  heir.  Throw 
me  a  nut,  will  you  ? ' ' 

"Well — if  our  name  isn't  Sharrow,  what  is  it?" 

Paul  paused,  and  then  he  said  effectively,  "Burton." 

"Oh,  get  along!  My  name  isn't  Burton.  Of  course  it 
isn't.  That's  absurd." 

"I  don't  see  why." 

"Well,  it  is.  I  mean  to  say — one's  name  couldn't  be 
Burton." 

Burton  seemed  to  him  a  monstrously  ugly  word. 

"That's  what  your  grandfather  said.    He  sued — us." 

"My  grandfather,"  repeated  Sandy,  slowly,  "sued — 
your  grandfather — this  man." 

"Yes.  And  lost  his  case,  of  course.  Oh,  it's  no  good, 
my  dear  fellow,  you  are  not  the  long-lost  heir!" 

Paul  laughed.  He  had  more  of  the  malice  of  the  family 
than  any  of  the  boys. 

And  then,  neither  of  them  ever  quite  remembered  how, 
the  two  were  at  each  other's  throats.  Hammer  and  tongs 
they  fought,  and  in  the  qaiet  room  was  heard  only  the  dull 
thump  of  fist  on  flesh,  and  hard  breathing. 

They  were  fairly  well  matched,  though  Paul  was  the 


SHARROW  21 

slighter,  for  he  was  uncommonly  agile,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  a  born  boxer. 

On  and  on  they  fought,  Paul  very  red,  Sandy  very 
white,  until  a  spurt  of  blood  from  the  latter 's  nose  splashed 
everything  with  crimson. 

Then  Sandy  spoke,  with  a  kind  of  snort  between  his 

words.  "Damn  you — that — isn't — Burton  blood "  he 

said. 

And  then,  just  as  these  things  always  happen  in  books, 
and  sometimes  in  real  life,  the  old  lord  opened  the  door. 

He  did  not  interrupt  them.  On  the  contrary,  he  stood 
quite  still  watching,  with  a  keen  pleasure  in  his  red-edged 
old  eyes. 

When  at  length  Paul,  by  a  well-placed  blow,  knocked 
Sandy  down,  the  old  man  spoke. 

' '  There,  that  will  do, ' '  he  said.    ' '  Get  up,  Sandy. ' ' 

Sandy  got  up. 

' '  I  gathered  from  an  impious  remark  I  heard  as  I  opened 
the  door,  that  you  were  fighting  for — your  name.  Is  that 
correct  ? ' ' 

' '  Yes,  sir, ' '  mumbled  Sandy,  sullenly,  fingering  his  swell- 
ing nose. 

"Well" — the  old  man  turned,  and  again  opened  the 
door — "you  were  quite  right.  That  is  not  Burton  blood 
that  is  messing  up  my  floor.  The  law  proved  that  your 
grandfather  was  not  the  heir  of  the  title,  but  it  gave  him  the 
right  to  bear  our  name.  Now  shake  hands." 

The  two  boys  shook  hands,  and  the  old  man  went  out, 
leaving  them  together. 


CHAPTER  V 

LORD  SHABROW  had  been  amused  and  more  than  half 
pleased  by  the  Sharrow-Burton  fight. 

As  a  young  man  he  had  been  brutal  in  his  tastes,  and 
tastes  rarely  change  with  age ;  the  possibility  for  enjoyment 
of  them  may  fail,  as  fails  the  capacity  for  indulging  them, 
but  fundamentally  they  survive. 

And  the  drunken  old  peer,  who,  among  other  things 
fully  realized  his  own  quality  of  a  curiosity  in  these  ab- 
stemious days,  knew  that  he  had  enjoyed  the  battle  just 
as  much  for  the  primary  reason  that  it  was  a  fight  as  for 
the  reason  of  its  being. 

The  other  Sandy,  as  our  boy  called,  in  petto,  the  heir, 
was  a  fine  manly  lad,  and  the  old  man  was  duly  proud 
of  him.  Our  Sandy,  it  was  clear,  was  a  quarrelsome  young 
beast,  and  that  endeared  him  to  his  venerable  relation. 

A  few  days  after  the  bloody  event  that  pleased  him, 
the  old  man  sent  a  servant  to  tell  Mr.  Alexander  to  come 
to  him. 

The  heir  being,  as  all  the  Sharrows  had  always  been, 
Mr.  Sandy,  our  boy  was  Mr.  Alexander,  which  he  detested. 

Presently  the  servant  came  back. 

' '  Mr.  Alexander  must  have  gone  out,  my  lord, ' '  he  said. 
"We  can't  find  'im." 

"Where  are  the  other  young  gentlemen?" 

"Mr.  Sandy  and  Mr.  Keith  are  gone  to  White  Shirley, 
my  lord ;  Mr.  Paul  is  in  the  library. ' ' 

"Send  Mr.  Paul  to  me." 

22 


SHAREOW  23 

Paul  came  in,  sucking  his  third  finger  to  get  off  a  large 
ink-spot. 

"Where's  Alexander?"  snapped  his  grandfather.  It  is 
a  rule  of  life  that  unoffending  people  should  be  far  more 
frequently  snapped  at  than  the  actively  troublesome. 

Paul 's  tongue  seemed  to  swell  as  he  answered.  It  always 
seemed  to  swell  when  he  was  agitated. 

"He's  on  the  roof,  sir." 

"On  the  roofl" 

"Yeth,  thir." 

Paul  stood  limply  before  him,  wondering  why  his  grand- 
father always  jumped  on  him.  He  did  not  know  that 
one  kind  of  personality  invariably  rouses  in  stronger  breasts 
a  wild  yearning  for  jumping. 

It  appeared  that  Alexander  liked  roofs.  He  had  found 
a  book  about  ' '  The  House, ' '  and  there  was  a  chapter  about 
nothing  but  roofs  and  chimneys.  So  he  had  gone  to  investi- 
gate. 

"I  told  him  you  wouldn't  like  it,  sir,"  added  Paul, 
eagerly. 

' '  Oh,  you  did !  Well,  as  it  happens,  I  do, "  the  old  man 
answered,  fiercely.  "You  may  go." 

Ten  minutes  later,  Lord  Sharrow,  purple  in  the  face, 
and  puffing  very  hard  indeed,  reached  the  top  of  one  of 
the  myriad  flights  of  stairs  that  burrowed  through  the  old 
house. 

With  a  huge  and  rusty  key,  he  opened  a  door  across  which 
many  industrious  spiders  had  spun  a  thick  fabric  that 
time  had  strengthened  with  dust,  and  went  into  a  small 
octagonal  room. 

There  were  four  windows,  set  in  six-foot-thick  walls,  a 
much-hacked  round  table,  and  two  leather-seated  Cromwel- 
lian  chairs.  Nothing  else. 

The  old  man  sat  down  and  looked  around.  He  had  not 
been  in  the  room  for  fifty  years.  The  last  time  was  when, 


24  SHARROW 

as  a  very  young  man,  he  had  brought  Cyrilla  Dallaford  up 
to  see  where,  as  a  boy,  he  had  once  been  incarcerated  for  a 
week,  for  some  crime  or  other,  and  whence  he  had,  every 
night,  escaped,  at  risk  of  life  and  limb,  over  the  roofs,  to 
play  on  his  father  and  neighbors  a  series  of  mad  tricks, 
of  which,  owing  to  the  apparently  safe  nature  of  his  prison, 
he  had  never  been  suspected. 

He  had  been  fourteen  or  fifteen  then ;  now  he  was  seventy- 
three.  He  chuckled  aloud  as  he  recalled  his  father's  speech, 
on  the  occasion  of  his  reinstatement  at  the  family  board, 
after  his  week's  seclusion:  "If  you  hadn't  been  locked 
safely  away,  my  son,  I  should  have  thrashed  you  on  the 
mere  suspicion  of  having  painted  the  rector's  pony  blue.  It 
smacks  strongly  of  your  kind  of  humor,  but  short  of  flying 
you  can't  have  got  out  of  the  tower,  and  I  see  no  wings 
yet." 

And  the  culprit  laughed  aloud  again,  after  all  these 
years,  to  think  how  well  he  had  done  his  job.  The  rector's 
pony  had  been  so  very  blue ;  and  it  had  been  such  a  long 
time  before  the  color  finally  faded  away  that  the  chil- 
dren in  the  village  came  to  regard  the  odd-looking  animal 
with  the  dull,  cold  eye  of  total  indifference. 

And  now  here  was  Sydney  Sharrow's  boy  on  the  roofs! 
So  far  as  the  old  man  knew,  the  only  one  beside  himself  to 
indulge  in  that  very  perilous  exploration. 

The  iron  hasp  which  loosened  the  pivot-hung  little  win- 
dow was  stiff  with  rust.  Lord  Sharrow  swore  vividly  as  he 
worked  at  it. 

Presently  it  groaned,  and  ceded,  and  he  put  his  head 
forth  into  the  pale  sunlight. 

"By  Jove!" 

He  had  forgotten  how  beautiful  the  roofs  of  his  house 
were.  Flat,  gabled  roofs  of  stone,  roofs  of  tiles,  roofs  of 
silver,  moss-covered  shingle.  From  some  four  feet  under- 
neath the  window  where  he  stood,  a  very  narrow  ledge 


SHARROW  25 

led  to  where,  about  six  feet  to  the  right,  a  bit  of  flat  stone 
coping  gave  better  foothold  and  safer  communication  with 
the  bulk  of  the  building. 

That  was  where  he,  the  Sandy  Sharrow  of  so  long  ago, 
had  crept,  night  after  night,  to  play  his  pranks.  It  made 
his  head  swim  now  to  look  at  it. 

He  had  come  hither  because  from  this  tower  one  was 
supposed  to  have  a  better  view  of  the  roofs  than  from 
any  other  point.  He  had  often  heard  his  father  speak 
of  the  view.  He  himself  had  never  come  back  since  that 
spring  day  in  1822.  Cyrilla  Dallaford  had  jilted  him,  and 
he  had  hated  her  until  she  died,  twenty-five  years  later,  but 
for  the  sake  of  the  memory  of  that  day  when  she  had  let  him 
hold  her  little  cool  fingers  in  his,  there,  just  where  he 
stood,  he  had  never  returned  to  the  Tower  Room. 

Suddenly  the  old  man  shivered  and  glanced  nervously 
round  him.  There  was  a  ghost  near  him,  and  he  knew  it. 

He  had  not  been  a  passive  enemy ;  he  was  resentful  and 
unforgetting ;  more  than  once  he  had  been  able  to  do  Mrs. 
Wymondham  a  bad  turn,  and — he  had  done  it. 

Once,  even,  in  a  time  of  great  trouble  she  had  turned  to 
him  for  help,  and  he  had  refused  it  brutally,  almost  with 
insult. 

And  now  she  was  dead,  and  he  a  very  old  man,  and  yet 
here  he  stood,  a  boy  just  over  twenty,  holding  ten  cool 
little  eighteen-year-old  fingers  in  his  hands. 

With  an  ugly  oath  Lord  Sharrow  left  the  window  where 
he  was  standing,  and  with  much  difficulty  opened  the  next 
one,  which  had  practically  the  same  view. 

The  beautiful,  diversified,  romantic  roofs  were,  so  far  as 
he  could  see,  empty  of  life.  Not  even  cats  really  cared  for 
the  roofs  of  Sharrow. 

"Young  fool,  where  can  he  be?  If  I  were  not  so  con- 
foundedly stiff,  he'd  have  a  caning  for  this!" 

And  then  he  saw  Sandy.    A  small  dark  blue  blob  lying  on 


26  SHARROW 

the  extreme  edge  of  an  isolated  scrap  of  reddish-gold  Eliza- 
bethan roof. 

It  was  too  large  for  a  cat,  and  it  was  not  made  of  tiles, 
or  slate,  so  it  followed  that  it  must  be  Sandy.  But  what 
in  God's  name  was  he  doing? 

The  old  man 's  eyes  were  not  very  good,  but  he  knew  that 
if  the  boy  slipped  so  much  as  six  inches  he  would  be  over 
the  edge  and  down  into  the  courtyard,  hundreds  of  feet 
below. 

The  blue  blob  lay  quite  motionless;  what  if It  was 

many  years  since  old  Sharrow  had  had  such  a  fright.  He 
felt  vaguely  sick,  and  his  knees  shook.  Even  he  had  never 
dared  to  do  that,  and  he  had  dared  most  things. 

He  sat  down.  He  would  not  have  dared  to  call,  even  if  his 
old  voice  could  have  carried  so  far.  He  must  just  wait. 

And  there  in  the  little  eight-sided  room  so  full  of  ghosts, 
he  waited  for  a  full  half-hour,  his  hands  like  ice,  a  strange 
and  horrid  sensation  at  the  pit  of  his  stomach. 

Finally  the  blue  blob  moved.  To  be  exact,  it  squirmed, 
wriggled  and  then  resolved  itself,  even  to  old  eyes,  into  a 
boy  on  very  cautious  all-fours. 

Lord  Sharrow,  who  had  not  been  inside  a  church  for 
forty  years,  and  who  hated  a  parson  as  some  very  delicate 
females  say  they  hate  cats,  said,  "Thank  God!"  When  the 
all-fours  boy  became  a  biped,  and  turned  his  footsteps  to- 
ward the  tower,  his  great-uncle  wiped  his  brow  and  rose. 

Sandy  sauntered  around  a  safe-looking  flat  place,  ex- 
amined a  chimney  with  his  hands  as  well  as  his  eyes,  and 
then,  sitting  down,  slid  to  a  lower  level  much  nearer  the 
tower. 

The  old  man  leaned  out.  "Sandy,"  he  said.  He  clean 
forgot  that  this  Sandy  was  Alexander.  The  boy  looked 
up. 

"Yes,  sir!     I — I'm  just  having  a  look  at  the  roofs." 

"So  I  see.    What  do  you  think  of  'em?" 


SHARROW  27 

He  could  see  the  smile  that  was  his  real  answer,  but 
Sandy  said  the  1874  word  for  ripping. 

"How  did  you  get  out?" 

"From  my  window.    I  hope  you  don't  mind,  sir?" 

' '  Oh,  no,  not  in  the  least.  It  has  given  me  the  most  vivid 
satisfaction  to  see  you  risking  your  life  in  this — this  damna- 
ble way, ' '  exploded  the  old  man.  Then  he  swore  hard  for 
quite  a  minute.  When  he  finished,  Sandy  was  laughing. 

' '  I  am  sorry,  sir,  but — my  word !  what  perfectly  glorious 
language ! ' ' 

It  was  hardly  in  Lord  Sharrow  to  be  ashamed  of  himself, 
but  he  was  certainly  ashamed  of  having  been  heard.  "Come 
up  here,  I  want  to  talk  to  you.  You  can  get  down  over  the 
Peacock-room  and  up  over " 

But  Sandy  was  already  walking  along  the  coping  that 
led  to  that  awful  ledge.  Lord  Sharrow  shut  his  eyes. 

"It's  old  age  that  makes  a  fool  of  me,"  he  muttered 
under  his  breath.  And  when  Sandy  was  safely  across  and 
climbing  easily  up  the  lightning  rod  to  the  window,  he  told 
himself  fiercely  that  every  man  ought  to  be  put  painlessly 
to  death  at  sixty,  and  every  woman  at  forty-five. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHEN  Sandy  had  scrambled  up  over  the  window-sill  and 
stood  rubbing  the  loose  dust  off  his  extremely  dirty  hands, 
Lord  Sharrow  pointed  to  a  chair. 

"Sit  down,"  he  said. 

Sandy  obeyed  in  silence. 

It  was  getting  on  toward  four  o'clock,  and  he,  having 
been  roof-climbing  since  two,  was  tired. 

"Well?"  asked  the  old  man. 

The  boy  looked  his  inquiry,  in  turn. 

""You  like  my  roofs,  hey?" 

"Yes." 

"You  like  my  house,  I  dare  say?" 

' '  I  think  it  is ' ' — he  stopped  short.  For  some  reason  he 
was  suddenly  shy  as  a  young  man  might  be  in  mentioning 
an  undeclared  love. 

"Well,  go  on.    What  do  you  think  it  is?" 

"The  most  beautiful  house  in  the  whole  world." 

This  was  enough  praise  even  for  a  Sharrow  of  Sharrow, 
but  it  was  not  their  way  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  that 
enchanting  conversational  commodity. 

' '  And  how  many  houses  have  you  seen  ? ' '  The  old  man 's 
tone  was  sardonic,  but  Sandy  did  not  wince.  Things  close 
to  him  were  so  close  as  to  be  protected  against  sneers,  and 
later  in  life  this  fact  deluded  many  people  into  thinking  him 
slow-witted. 

"I've  only  seen  three — inside,  but  that  doesn't  matter. 
It  is  the  most  beautiful  house  in  the  world." 

28 


SHARROW  23 

"Sandy  never  says  that.;' 

"I  don't  care."  Our  Sandy's  ugly  little  face  was 
dogged.  It  was  perfectly  true  that  he  did  not  care  what 
the  other  Sandy  or  anyone  else  thought  about  Sharrow. 

The  paling  sunlight  fell  full  on  him  as  he  spoke,  and 
the  old  man  drew  his  rough  brows  sharply  together.  Syd- 
ney had  been  right,  this  descendant  of  an  illegal  marriage 
was  more  a  Sharrow  than  any  of  them. 

' '  Don 't  you  wish  you  were  Sandy  ? "  he  asked,  abruptly. 

"I  am." 

"You  are  Alexander."  Old  Sharrow  was  teasing  now, 
with  the  malice  characteristic  of  the  family. 

"I  am  Sandy.  It  doesn't  matter,"  the  boy  declared  with 
finality,  "how  many  other  Sandys  there  are,  I  am  Sandy, 
too." 

There  was  a  pause,  and  the  queer  grin,  with  the  forward 
thrust  of  the  jaw,  died  away  from  the  old  man's  face. 

Presently  he  said,  "You  are  right.  I  had  no  right  to 
change  your  name.  "We  will,  henceforth,  call  you  Sandy. ' ' 

"Thank  you,  sir." 

Of  course,  they  both  were  thinking  that  two  Sandys  in 
one  house  would  cause  much  confusion,  but  neither  of  them 
considered  that  worth  mentioning.  There  was  always  a 
certain  directness  about  them.  They  saw  their  wish  clearly, 
and  did  not  see  intervening  obstacles. 

' '  Well,  don 't  you  wish  you  were  the  other  Sandy  ? ' ' 

Our  boy  laughed.  His  white  front  teeth  overlapped  a  lit- 
tle from  left  to  right.  His  great-uncle's  false  ones  did 
the  same.  "No.  I'd  like  to  be  your  heir,  but " 

' '  But  you  'd  rather  be  yourself  than  Sandy.  I  see.  I  also 
think, ' '  he  added  slowly,  ' '  that  you  are  right.  How  much 
do  you  know  about  the  family  history  ? ' ' 

Sandy  leaned  his  red  head  against  the  leather-backed 
chair  he  sat  in. 

"A  lot.     I  know  all  about  the  first  man — King  John's 


30  SHARROW 

one,  who  was  with  the  king  at  Runnymede.  And  I  know 
about  the  one  who  refused  to  go  to  the  war  in  France  and 
said  when  the  king  said,  'By  God!  Sir  Knight,  you  shall 
go.'  'By  God!  Sir  King,  I  will  not.'  And  he  didn't  go 
either.  None  of  'em — of  us — ever  did  fight  France,  sir,  did 
they?" 

"No — and  rightly.  The  kings  had  no  right  to  ask  it  of 
men  who  are  French  noblemen  before  they  became  Eng- 
lish." 

Sandy  nodded. 

' '  And  I  read  about  the  one,  Simon,  who  went  to  Florence 
and  made  rhymes  at  the  court  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent, 
and  married  a  Tornabuoni.  How  beautiful  she  must  have 
been — if  the  picture  in  the  book  is  like  her ! ' ' 

"Go  on.  You  seem  to  have  been  studying  the  family 
chronicle." 

"I  have.  Paul  showed  me  one  or  two  books,  and  I 
found  the  rest  myself.  Well,  there  was  the  one  who  went 
to  Rouen  to  see  Joan  of  Arc.  He  was  a  painter,  wasn't 
he?" 

"Yes,  a  very  bad  painter.  He  painted  as  they  set  fire 
to  the  girl." 

It  greatly  impressed  Sandy  to  hear  his  great-uncle  refer 
to  Joan  of  Arc  as  "the  girl."  It  sounded,  somehow,  so 
splendidly  familiar  with  the  great  ones  of  the  earth. 

For  half  an  hour  he  talked  on,  while  the  light  faded,  and 
the  old  man  listened.  The  boy  was  too  young  to  see  the 
ugly,  ruthless  side  of  the  lives  of  his  ancestors ;  too  young 
to  realize  that  their  constant  loyalty  to  the  crown,  regard- 
less of  right  or  wrong,  or  pity  for  the  oppressed,  was  a 
selfish  quality.  To  him  their  great  characteristic,  bravery 
in  battle,  covered  everything  else.  And  brave  they  were. 
Never  from  the  day  the  wild  young  Frenchman  had  decided 
to  stay  on  in  the  country  whither  he  had  been  brought  a 
prisoner  of  war,  had  there  been  a  war  in  which  England 


SHARROW  31 

was  involved  (always  excepting  those  with  France,  in 
which,  to  a  man,  they  stubbornly  refrained  from  taking  a 
hand),  without  one  or  more  Sharrows  playing  in  it  a 
gallant,  reckless,  bloodthirsty  part. 

The  old  Barony  dated  from  a  battle-field.  And  yet,  as 
a  kind  of  undercurrent  in  their  natures  ran  the  love  of 
the  beautiful  that  sent  Sir  Simon  in  1480  to  see  Flor- 
ence to  Lorenzo's  Court,  and  led  the  "wicked"  Mary 
Sharrow  to  kill  herself  for  love  of  one  Edmund  Spenser, 
who  called  her  "a  short,  dark  mayde"  and  left  her  letters 
unanswered. 

But  of  all  the  Sharrows,  Richard,  a  younger  son,  who 
went  to  the  Spanish  Main  with  that  great  gentleman  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  and  later  lost  his  head  at  the  Tower  (less 
loyal  than  the  rest,  it  seems,  and  possibly  more  lovable) 
was  the  boy 's  favorite.  Of  him  he  talked  so  long  that  quite 
suddenly  night  was  on  them,  and  the  old  man  was  fain  to 
lean  on  his  arm  as  they  went  down  the  dark  stairs. 

"I  will  show  you  some  day,"  Lord  Sharrow  said,  as  he 
dismissed  the  story-teller,  "some  letters  of  Charles  I  to 
the  Sharrow  of  that  day." 

"Oh,  sir,  please  show  them  to  me  now — I  mean  to-mor- 
row. ' ' 

In  the  faint  firelight  coming  through  an  open  door, 
Sandy's  face  was  almost  luminous  with  earnestness. 

"No.  They  are — you  are  too  young.  But  they  were 
found  in  George  Ill's  time  by  a  housemaid  rummaging 
in  the  attic.  They  were  all  crushed,  as  if  someone  had 
crumpled  them  up  to  throw  them  away — and  then  forgot. ' ' 
The  old  man's  voice  died  down.  His  pride  in  his  family 
was  a  fierce  burning,  never  abating  fire,  but  he  was  old, 
and  time  had  banked  it  with  ashes.  Now  Sandy  poked  it, 
and  for  the  moment  it  flared  up  as  strongly  as  Sandy's 
own. 

"There  is  a  ring  of  Richard  Sharrow 's,"  he  went  on, 


CHAPTER  VII 

OUR  Sandy's  education  had,  up  to  the  time  of  his  visit 
to  his  great-uncle,  been  conducted  along  what  is  best  ex- 
pressible by  that  now  fashionable  phrase,  the  lines  of  least 
resistance. 

He  had  had  several  daily  governesses,  all  of  whom  had 
possessed  noses  of  the  easily  leadable  kind.  Blind  to  the 
charms  of  the  multiplication-table,  deaf  to  the  voice  of 
Lindley  Murray,  stonily  indifferent  to  spelling,  he  was  yet 
so  good-tempered  (except  when  what  is  called  in  a  temper) , 
so  ugly,  so  red-headed,  so  solemn  and  so  merry,  all  in  the 
delightful  mix-up  that  composes  childhood,  that  Miss  Old- 
boy,  Miss  Fitzhardinge,  and  Miss  Lute,  all  almost  loved 
him. 

Miss  Lute,  a  small,  faded  lady  who  carried  biscuits  in 
a  black  satin  bag,  and  ate  them  between  meals,  Sandy 
loved  in  his  turn.  He  called  her,  not  without  reason, 
Crummy.  She  was  crummy.  He  also  partook  of  her  bis- 
cuits and  found  them  delicious. 

But  when  she  tried  to  beguile  him  into  the  horrors  of 
seven  times  six  and  so  on,  she  failed. 

Now  the  other  Sandy  and  Keith,  had  been  much  better 
brought  up.  (Paul's  father  being  a  parson,  it  follows, 
as  day  follows  night,  that  he  should  be  possessed  of  a  dis- 
gusting amount  of  knowledge.) 

One  night,  some  thirteen  years  before  our  Sandy's  visit  to 
the  house  of  his  fathers,  Lord  Sharrow,  who  for  many  years 
had  been  a  widower,  was  sitting  over  his  fire  more  than 

34 


SHARROW  35 

half  drunk,  when  the  door  opened  and  his  son,  who  had 
married  against  his  wishes  and  had  not  been  home  since, 
came  in. 

Holding  one  of  his  hands,  walked  a  small,  red-haired  boy 
of  three ;  in  his  arm  was  a  baby  of  about  a  month  old. 

' '  Here  they  are,  Father, ' '  Sandy  Sharrow  said.  ' '  She  is 
dead." 

He  was  a  wild,  half-mad  man,  the  kind  of  son  who  breaks 
the  hearts  of  conventional  parents,  but  his  father  was  not 
conventional,  and  had  himself  been  far  wilder.  Besides, 
it  was  now  not  Sandy  who  mattered.  It  was  the  little  boy 
at  his  side. 

The  old  man,  half  sobered  by  the  surprise,  collected  his 
powers  with  a  violent  effort,  and  spoke. 

"Is  that,"  he  asked,  pointing  to  the  sleeping  baby,  "a 
girl?" 

His  son  laughed.  "Should  I  have  brought  you  a  girl?" 
he  retorted. 

He  had  gone  the  next  day,  and  his  father  never  saw 
him  again.  He  had  loved  his  wife,  who  had  not  been  a 
lady,  with  all  the  violence  of  his  rough  nature,  which 
seemed  to  be  a  throw-back  to  some  half-civilized  ancestor. 

He  would  have  been  an  excellent  pirate ;  as  a  nineteenth- 
century  gentleman  he  was  a  failure. 

And  his  wife's  death  severed  the  last  link  that  bound 
him  to  decent  living. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  dogs  liked  him. 

Meantime,  old  Sharrow,  caring  very  little  about  his  son, 
since  his  son  had  proved  to  be  living  a  life  that  must  cut 
itself  short,  set  himself  to  the  task  of  bringing  up  the 
boys. 

He  engaged  the  most  expensive  nurses  for  them,  and, 
when  the  time  came,  a  governess  so  expensive  that  it  seemed 
she  must  prove  wonderful. 

She   did,   but  she  was   wonderful   in  the   wrong  way. 


36  SHARROW 

One  day  when  she  had  been  at  Sharrow  about  a  year,  her 
employer  sent  for  her. 

"Miss  Ewing,"  he  said,  looking  up  at  her — (she  was  a 
handsome,  dark  creature  and  wore  welded  around  her  neck 
a  silver  snake  of  Eastern  make) — ' '  I  have  asked  you  to  come 
to  me  this  morning  to  tell  you  that  from  the  beginning  of 
next  month  you  may  consider  yourself  disengaged. ' ' 

"Disengaged — you  mean  to  say " 

"Precisely."     He  bowed  his  wicked  old  silver  head. 

"I  may  at  least  ask  the  reason  why?"  she  asked  with 
hauteur. 

"It  is  an  indiscreet  question." 

"Nevertheless,  I  ask  it." 

"It  is,  then,  because  ever  since  you  have  been  here,  you 
have  been  trying  to  marry  me." 

At  this  point  she  lost  her  head,  and  accused  him  of  in- 
sulting her. 

"No,"  he  answered,  rising  and  opening  the  door  with 
the  most  infuriating  courtesy,  "you  have  insulted  me — by 
believing  me  to  be  in  my  dotage.  Good  morning." 

Miss  Ewing  was  succeeded  by  Mrs.  Reed. 

Mrs.  Reed  possessed  three  excellent  qualities;  age,  ugli- 
ness, and  a  full  consciousness  of  both. 

But  she  was  quite  uneducated  in  the  ways  of  educating 
others,  and  her  tenure  was  short. 

Miss  Gort  (excellent  in  grammar  but  what  Sandy  called 
short  in  everything  else)  stayed  six  months;  Fraulein  Was- 
sermesser  four  (her  letters  to  Germany  would  be  good  read- 
ing for  those  who  regard  that  country  as  Scythia  and  Eng- 
land the  only  abode  of  light),  and  Mademoiselle  Rouget,  al- 
ways called,  through  an  unexpected  bit  of  knowledge  on 
Sandy's  part,  Miss  Mullet,  nearly  a  year. 

Then  came  Mr.  Finucane,  and  he  stayed  until  Keith 
joined  his  brother  at  a  prep  school  for  Eton. 

Mr.  Finucane  was  a  remarkably  nice  youth,  and  he  made 


SHARROW  37 

real  boys  of  his  charges,  teaching  them  the  joys  of  rats 
and  ferrets,  the  superiority  of  horses  to  mere  ponies,  the 
very,  very  little  difference  wind  and  rain  matter  to  fellows 
who  are  fellows,  and  other  things  of  the  kind. 

And  Sandy  now,  at  sixteen,  and  Keith  at  fourteen,  were 
very  good  sorts  of  fellows,  indeed. 

Sandy  was  not  clever  and  Keith,  who  might  have  been  a 
musician  in  the  right  hands,  hid  his  love  of  melody  as  if 
it  had  been  a  dire  disease,  until  it  died. 

They  bade  fair,  at  that  time,  to  be  exactly  what  they 
eventually  became,  wholesome,  honest  Englishmen,  clean 
mentally  and  physically,  unimaginative,  brave,  truth-telling 
and  dull. 

There  are  many  such,  and  they  are  by  no  means  the 
worst. 

An  epidemic  of  measles  at  Eton  had  sent  them  home  that 
November,  and  the  Christmas  holidays  coming  just  as  the 
school  bill  of  health  became  clean,  they  were  at  Sharrow 
with  Paul  and  our  Sandy  for  over  six  weeks. 

It  was  a  mild,  open  winter,  so  the  brothers  had  a  glorious 
time,  hunting  most  days,  walking  and  riding  other  days, 
eating  huge  meals  and  digesting  them  magnificently,  avoid- 
ing their  grandfather  as  much  as  they  could,  and  being  in 
a  casual,  off-hand  way,  very  kind  to  Paul  and  the  new  chap, 
neither  of  whom  counted  in  the  least  in  their  scheme  of 
life. 

And  on  their  side,  Paul  and  the  new  chap  paid  little 
heed  to  them. 

They  were  on  one  side  because  the  intimacy  and  the  self- 
centredness  of  the  brothers  forced  them  to  that  position, 
but  there  was  no  real  bond  between  them.  Old  Lord  Shar- 
row's  inviting  them  at  all  was  only  a  proof  of  the  strong 
family  feeling  that  has  kept  the  Sharrows  so  intensely  Shar- 
row-like  through  all  the  centuries.  His  son  had  been  al- 
lowed to  go  his  way  without  a  word,  once  he  had  provided 


38  SHAEROW 

an  heir,  but  the  son  had  been  an  exceptionally  hopeless 
case.  This,  of  course,  was  his  mother's  fault. 

The  strength  of  the  family  type  was  always  a  wonder  to 
strangers,  but  it  was  perfectly  clear  to  understand  once 
one  was  told. 

The  great  raw-boned,  red-headed  Sharrow  men  were  not 
primarily  women's  men.  They  were  not  indifferent  to  the 
charms  of  sex — no  long-enduring  family  can  be — but 
women,  as  wives,  at  least,  were  quite  secondary  matters  to 
them. 

They  married  for  the  most  part  with  the  care  that  most 
men  use  only  in  their  kennels  and  stables.  They  chose,  not 
companions  for  themselves,  but  mothers  for  their  future 
sons ;  they  married  healthy,  well-built,  clean-blooded  women, 
and  they  never  married  relations. 

The  few  among  them  who  ignored  this  family  law  had 
been  punished  in  a  way  that  added  greatly  to  the  belief 
of  the  rest  in  the  strength  of  it. 

In  Charles  II 's  reign  Lord  Sharrow  married  a  delicate, 
pretty,  black-eyed  child,  maid-of-honor  to  Braganza's 
Katherine.  Their  only  son,  whether  by  the  direct  judgment 
of  God,  or  by  chance,  was  a  hunchback,  and  to  the  present 
day  his  physical  defect  was  regarded  by  his  descendants  as 
a  disgrace. 

He  redeemed  his  father's  fault,  poor  man,  by  taking  to 
wife  the  ugly,  healthy,  big-boned  daughter  of  a  Scotch  peer, 
and  by  producing  by  her,  three  physically  faultless  sons. 

It  was  George  Selwyn  who  said  one  day  to  the  Regent 
that  it  was  for  the  Sharrows  a  matter  of  regret  that  men 
are  obliged  to  wear  clothes.  If  they  were  not,  he  added, 
they  would  be  the  handsomest  men  in  the  Kingdom. 

Sandy  wandering,  as  he  often  wandered,  through  the  pic- 
ture gallery,  made  for  himself  the  great  discovery.  And 
his  great-uncle  discovered  him  making  it,  which,  of  course, 
was  delightful  for  the  old  man. 


SHARROW  39 

"Well?"  the  old  man  asked,  blinking  down  at  the  boy 
with  very  red  eyes. 

"I  was  just  wondering,"  Sandy  replied  with  the  sim- 
plicity that  at  that  time  distinguished  him,  "why  they  all 
married  such  awful  ugly  women. ' ' 

' '  That  is  a  very  sensible  question,  and  I  will  tell  you  the 
answer  to  it.  When  a  man  is  one  of  a  very  old,  very  il- 
lustrious family,  my  boy,  he  is  not  just  a  man ;  he  is — a  link 
in  a  chain.  Do  you  see  that?" 

"No." 

' '  Well,  a  man  who  is  a  nobody  is  more  or  less  at  liberty 
to  do  with  his  life  what  he  likes.  He  may  marry,  for  all 
the  harm  he  will  do  the  world,  a  cook-maid. ' ' 

Sandy  watched  him  unblinkingly. 

"And  his  children,  being  presumably  the  cook-maid's, 
as  well,  may  turn  out  what  they  like.  It  doesn't  matter, 
and  they  don't  matter.  You  follow  me?" 

"Yes." 

"But  a  man  belonging  to  one  of  our  great  families,  the 
Howards,  the  Pembrokes,  the  Hertfords,  or  us — we  are 
obliged  by  our  position  to  think  not  only  of  the  pretty  face 
that  charms  us  for  the  moment,  but  of — the  future. ' ' 

Sandy  watched  the  old  man  with  the  deepest  attention. 
Psychologically,  although  he  had  never  heard  the  word, 
the  old  man  interested  him. 

He  had  seen  his  great-uncle  a  little  drunk,  drunk,  and 
very  drunk,  and  the  well-informed  Paul  had  told  him  facts 
concerning  certain  sons  and  daughters  of  the  old  man  whose 
names,  if  they  had  any,  were  certainly  not  Sharrow,  so  that 
the  boy  had  a  fairly  good  idea  of  the  old  man's  moral 
status. 

Yet  here  was  Sharrow,  still  shaky  and  red-eyed  from  the 
effects  of  last  night's  port,  the  same  old  man  he  had  heard 
violently  cursing  his  valet  two  hours  before,  the  same  old 
man  at  whom,  a  few  days  before,  an  unwashed  scoundrel 


40  SHARROW 

had  thrown  bricks,  calling  him  Father  before  the  whole 
village,  as  he  drove  out  in  his  barouche — here  was  the  Baron 
Sharrow  of  Sharrow,  obviously  a  dissipated,  violent,  evil- 
living  old  man,  inculcating  into  him,  Sandy,  a  principle 
of  the  utmost  self-denial  in  the  matter  the  most  vital, 
even  the  child  knew,  of  all  matters  in  the  world — Love. 

"Do  you  see  what  I  mean?" 

"Yes." 

Lord  Sharrow,  unsuspecting  the  scrutiny  to  which  the 
small  green  eyes  were  subjecting  him,  went  on,  warming 
to  his  subject,  in  which  he  was  absolutely  sincere. 

"Your  great-uncle,  that  one  there,  in  the  blue  coat — do 
you  see  his  back?" 

Sandy  nodded.  The  painter  had  chosen  for  his  subject  a 
pose  that  cruelly  exposed  the  crookedness  of  his  shoulders. 
Or  had  the  man  with  the  hump,  in  his  bitterness  of  soul,  so 
placed  himself,  victim  of  his  father's  disregard  of  the 
family  law? 

' '  His  father  married  for  love.  Well — what  do  you  want 
to  say!" 

"Only  that — all  people  who  marry  for  love  don't  have 
crooked  children.  Do  they?" 

' '  No.  Of  course  they  don 't.  And  some  attractive  women 
are  healthy.  Good  God,  yes!  But — well,  I  have  answered 
your  question.  Have  you  any  others?" 

' '  No,  sir,  thank  you.  Except — I  wish  you  'd  tell  me  about 
my  great-grandfather. ' ' 

"My  Uncle  Sandy?  I  will.  He  was  married  abroad,  in 
Bavaria.  You  would  not  understand  the  technicalities — I 
don't  myself.  But  a  new  law  had  been  passed,  and  he,  not 
knowing  of  it,  did  not  conform  to  it.  If  he  had  been 
married  three  weeks  sooner,  your  father  would  be  Lord 
Sharrow  to-day.  That  is  all." 

"And  my  grandfather  went  to  law?" 

4 '  He  did.    He  sued  me.    You  see,  your  great-grandfather 


SHARROW  41 

married  twice.  Your  grandfather  was  the  first  wife's  son, 
my  father  the  second  wife 's.  Is  it  clear  ? ' ' 

Sandy  nodded  slowly.  ' '  Yes,  thanks.  How  did  they  find 
out?  I  mean  about  the  dates?" 

Lord  Sharrow  scowled  suddenly,  and  to  the  boy  looked 
more  of  an  Old  Horror  than  any  of  those  on  the  walls. 

"Are  you  going  to  claim  the  title?"  he  jeered,  his  jaw, 
in  which  the  yellow  lower  teeth  looked  like  old  fangs, 
stuck  out  hideously.  ' '  I  advise  you  not  to. ' '  Then  he  went 
away,  walking  even  now,  in  his  gouty  old  age,  with  the 
brave  swing  that  marked  the  carriage  of  all  the  men  of 
the  family. 

Sandy  flushed.     He  was  angry. 

He  had  meant  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  the  old  man 
should  have  known  it. 

Sandy's  jaw,  though  unfurnished  with  fangs,  could  stick 
out  as  well  as  his  great-uncle 's. 

And  it  stuck  out  now. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ON  the  day  before  that  appointed  for  our  Sandy's  re- 
turn home,  he  was  sent  for  by  his  great-uncle,  and  found  the 
old  gentleman  where  he  had  never  before  seen  him — in  his 
study,  at  the  large,  business-like-looking  writing  table 
whence  he  had  dismissed  the  aspiring  Miss  Ewing. 

Sandy  did  not  know  it,  but  Lord  Sharrow  for  all  his 
handicaps  of  drinking,  age,  and  gout,  was  a  very  shrewd 
landlord  and  still  directed  the  management  of  the  vast 
estate. 

Mr.  Dingle,  the  steward,  was,  his  lordship  was  wont  to 
say,  not  one  of  the  new-fangled  sort  who  consider  them- 
selves gentlemen,  and  theorize  about  agriculture,  but  an 
old-fashioned,  upper-servant  kind  of  man,  who  asked  for 
orders,  obeyed  those  given  to  him,  and  saw  that  those 
given  to  others  were  carried  out. 

Mr.  Dingle,  a  pot-bellied  man  with  an  anxious  eye  in  a 
kindly,  rubicund  face,  was  in  as  great  fear  of  his  employer, 
as  if  that  old  gentleman  had  been  the  other  Old  Gentleman 
to  whom  one  pays  the  compliment  of  capital  letters.  Be- 
yond his  qualities  of  fear  and  obedience,  he  possessed  that 
of  silence.  His  worldly  goods  included  besides  a  charming 
Georgian  house  in  the  village,  next  to  the  bank,  an  as 
charming  daughter. 

His  life  was  not  altogether  an  easy  one,  but  he  never 
complained.  Sometimes  he  would  tell  his  troubles  to  his 
foster-sister,  Mrs.  Babbage,  the  innkeeper's  wife,  and 
Ellen  Babbage,  a  wise  woman  in  that  she  verj  rarely  spoke, 
sympathized. 

42 


SHARROW  43 

The  inn  parlor  was  a  pleasant  room  looking  out  over  a 
lawn  as  delicate  and  smooth  as  any  his  lordship  could 
boast ;  the  chintz  was  of  that  delightful  kind  that  looks  as  if 
it  had  grown  in  the  room  and  yet  never  intended  to  be  either 
dingy  or  shabby.  There  was  a  corner  cupboard  full  of 
china  which  every  traveller  coming  that  way  tried  to  buy 
for  a  song  (intending  to  sell  it  for  a  small  fortune),  only 
to  find  that  in  the  serene-faced  Ellen  he  had  met  a  woman 
very  wise  in  Chelsea  Spode  and  Lowestoft,  and  appallingly 
well  versed  in  the  current  price  of  these  enchanting  prod- 
ucts. 

' '  Oh,  no,  sir, ' '  she  would  say,  gently,  holding  the  cup  or 
teapot  in  question  in  her  snowy  apron.  "I  think  you  must 
be  mistaken.  This  is  real  old  Lowestoft — there 's  the  mark. 
A  month  or  so  ago  one  sold  at  Carrington's  for  six 
guineas." 

And  the  gentleman,  having  jovially  offered  ten  shillings 
for  the  little  thing  to  which  he  had  "just  taken  one  of  his 
fancies, ' '  usually  felt  the  immediate  need  of  solitude  in  the 
garden,  and  a  whisky-and-soda. 

On  that  particular  day  Sandy,  when  Dingle  had  gone, 
was  told  several  things  by  his  great-uncle.  He  was  told 
that  he  was  to  be  educated,  at  which  he  showed  no  en- 
thusiasm whatever.  He  had  hitherto  never  connected 
books  with  education — that  is  to  say,  what  he  called  real 
books,  in  contradistinction  to  those  unreal  ones  out  of  which 
he  had  been  expected  to  gather  wisdom  under  Miss  Oldboy 
and  Miss  Lute. 

"Are  you  not  glad?"  the  old  man  asked  sharply. 

He  did  not  believe  in  gratitude,  but  he  expected  expres- 
sions of  it. 

"Y-yes.    Am  I  to  go  to  school?" 

"You  are.  You  are  going  to  a  preparatory  school  first, 
and  then  to  Marlborough. " 

"Oh.    Th-thankyou,  sir." 


44  SHARROW 

"Well,  well,  out  with  it — what's  the  matter?  I  suppose 
you  expected  Eton?" 

He  flushed  a  deep  red,  and  his  tusks  showed. 

Sandy  flushed,  too,  and  the  old  man  and  the  boy  looked 
very  much  alike  for  a  moment  as  they  glared  at  each 
other  across  the  paper-strewn  table. 

At  last  Sandy  spoke. 

' '  I  didn  't  expect  anything, ' '  he  said  slowly,  a  nasty  look 
about  his  mouth,  ' '  and  I  didn 't  ask  for  anything.  What 's 
more,  I  don't  know  that  I  can  accept  anything — from 
you." 

It  is  said  that  gentlemen,  even  wicked  ones,  no  longer 
swear.  But  this  was  in  '74,  and  Lord  Sharrow  was  a  sur- 
vival even  then.  What  he  said  startled  Sandy,  so  that 
the  boy  stood  as  he  did,  stock  still,  only  with  a  tremendous 
effort. 

Lord  Sharrow 's  last  words  were  quotable. 

* '  Oh,  you  don 't,  don 't  you  ?    Kindly  tell  me  why  ? ' ' 

"Because  you — you  seem  to  take  for  granted  that  I — 
want  things.  This  is  the  second  time  you  have  done  it. 
And  I  don't  like  it." 

There  was  a  long  pause,  broken  first  by  the  whirring 
and  striking  of  the  bronze  clock  on  the  mantelpiece.  It  was 
four  o'clock.  Both  of  the  people  in  the  room  always  re- 
membered that  trifling  fact. 

When  the  echo  of  the  final  stroke  had  died  into  the  soft 
silence  that  seems  to  wrap  rich  men's  houses,  Lord  Shar- 
row spoke. 

His  face  was  still  patched  with  color,  but  his  jaw  re- 
treated into  the  proper  perspective,  and  the  gleam  had  gone 
from  his  eyes. 

"You  are  quite  right,"  he  said,  "and  I — was  wrong.  I 
beg  your  pardon." 

Sandy,  with  a  singularly  unboyish  air  of  dignity,  bowed 
without  speaking,  and  the  old  man  went  on. 


SHARROW  45 

"I  think  you  will  like  Marlborough.  It  is  a  fine  school. 
And — if  you  conduct  yourself  there  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  you  a  credit  to  the  name,  I  will  send  you  to  Cam- 
bridge." 

Sandy  was  not  a  forgiving  person,  and  he  was  still  very 
angry.  Indeed,  it  took  him  several  years  to  forgive  his 
great-uncle's  remark. 

But  he  was  a  gentleman.  He  expressed  his  thanks  in  cor- 
rect though  rather  halting  terms,  and  the  interview  was 
at  an  end. 

When  he  had  left  the  room,  Lord  Sharrow  sat  for  some 
time  without  moving,  a  brooding  bend  on  his  brows.  He 
liked  Sandy — better  far  than  he  liked  his  heir.  He  would 
have  loved  to  see  our  boy  in  his  cousin's  place.  And  yet, 
though  he  was  a  very  unscrupulous  old  man  indeed,  and  as 
strong-willed  as  only  selfish  people  allow  themselves  to  be, 
it  remains  a  fact  that  if  he  could  in  some  way  have  broken 
a  law  without  fear  of  detection,  and  made  our  Sandy  his 
heir,  he  would  not  have  done  it. 

And  this  not  because  of  any  inherent  respect  for  the 
law,  either  of  God  or  of  man,  but  because  the  one  thing  on 
the  face  of  the  earth  that  he  did  respect  and  hold  dear  was 
his  family.  And  the  other  Sandy  was  the  one  intended  by 
the  family  to  continue  it,  to  create  future  Sharrows  for 
the  old  house. 

Meantime  Sandy  was  having  another  quarrel,  this  time 
with  Paul.  He  had  gone  straight  to  the  Small  Hall  where 
their  first  battle  had  taken  place,  intending  to  prowl  up 
and  down  until  his  temper  had,  what  he  called,  sunk.  It 
was  to  him,  in  its  rising,  so  like  a  tangible  thing  creeping 
up  his  body  till  it  reached  his  throat  to  choke  his  words, 
then  on  to  his  eyes  to  make  whatever  he  looked  at  appear 
distorted,  that  its  subsequent  dying  down  seemed  literally 
a  sinking. 

But  the  little  hall  was  not  empty. 


46  SHARROW 

Paul  sat  reading  under  a  big  lamp  that  threw  a  circle  of 
orange-colored  light  over  him  and  the  edge  of  the  table. 

Paul  looked  up.    "Well?"  he  asked. 

Paul  was  a  boy  of  small  vices.  He  was  peevish  and 
given  to  white  lies  (the  other  boys  said  he  had  not  the 
courage  necessary  for  big  ones)  and,  above  all,  he  was 
curious. 

"Well  what?"  Sandy's  voice  conveyed  a  warning,  but 
Paul  did  not  notice  it.  His  brain  was  far  from  his  eyes 
and  his  ears. 

"What  did  he  want  you  for?"  The  boys  had  been  to- 
gether when  the  message  came. 

' '  He  wanted  me, ' '  Sandy  growled, ' '  to  tell  me  that  Queen 
Anne  was  dead,  and  Queen  Victoria  come  to  the  throne." 

"But,  Sandy — Queen  Victoria  came  to  the  throne  in 
1837!" 

Sandy  crossed  the  room  with  the  perfectly  laudable  pur- 
pose of  seeking  solitude  somewhere  upstairs.  As  he  reached 
the  door,  Paul  went  on,  lisping  more  than  usual.  ' '  I  thay, 
Thandy,  do  tell  me " 

Sandy,  crimson  with  unjustifiable  rage  of  the  last-straw 
order,  turned  and  seemed  for  several  minutes  to  be  listening 
to  someone  uttering  the  most  horrible  and  blood-curdling 
oaths.  It  was  himself. 

Paul  put  down  his  book  and  rose. 

' '  Thandy  Tharrow, ' '  he  gasped,  blinking  like  a  weasel  as 
he  stared  across  the  strong  lamplight,  "you  ought  to  be 
athamed  of  yourthelf.  I  ought  to  go  and  tell  my  great- 
uncle  at  onth " 

He  did  not  say  he  meant  to  tell ;  he  did  not  mean  to  tell. 
It  was  the  only  retort  discourteous  he  could  think  of,  but 
it  was  fatal. 

With  a  kind  of  roaring  noise  in  his  throat,  Sandy  was  on 
him,  both  hands  clenched. 

For  several  seconds  there  was,  as  on  that  other  occasion, 


SHARROW  47 

no  sound  in  the  room  but  that  of  the  battering  of  fists. 
Then  there  was  a  loud  noise  and  a  cracking  sound,  as  Paul 
spun  across  the  floor,  knocking  a  chair  over,  and  then 
going  bang  on  his  skull  in  a  corner. 

He  lay  quite  still. 

Sandy,  his  anger  now  quite  gone,  not  from  remorse 
but  from  the  relief  of  the  violent  exercise,  stood  looking 
at  him. 

"Get  up,  Paul,"  he  growled.  "Someone  will  be  com- 
ing." Paul  did  not  move. 

Sandy,  taking  the  great  lamp,  carried  it  with  some  diffi- 
culty to  the  corner  where  his  vanquished  adversary  lay. 
He  set  the  lamp  down  on  the  window-sill  nearest  at  hand, 
and  kneeling  looked  closely  at  Paul. 

His  breathing  was  heavy,  but  no  more  irregular  than 
Sandy's  own.  Sandy  went  upstairs. 

Paul  came  to  dinner  as  usual,  and  no  reference  was 
made  to  the  fight,  until  the  two  boys  were  on  their  way 
upstairs  to  bed. 

Then,  on  the  landing,  Paul  paused. 

"I  say,  Sandy,"  he  said,  "where  did  you  hear  those 
things  you  said  ? ' ' 

"What  things?" 

"When  you — when  you  swore  so.  Like  a  pirate  in  a 
book  it  was,  only — better.  Did  you  make  it  up?" 

Sandy  laughed.  He  was  still  angry,  of  course,  with  his 
great-uncle,  but  he  would  not  on  that  account  give  the 
old  man  away. 

"Cut  along  to  bed,  youngster,"  he  answered  good- 
temperedly. 

He  felt  suddenly  extremely  grown  up. 


CHAPTER  IX 

AN  accident  on  the  line  between  White  Shirley  and  Lon- 
don prevented  the  early  afternoon  departure  of  Sandy  and 
Paul,  who  was  to  be  met  at  Euston  by  his  father,  and  it 
was  nine  o'clock  before  the  boys  left  the  house  for  the  sta- 
tion. 

Sandy  had  a  solitary  day,  but  not  a  lonely  one. 

To  understand  him  at  this  time  it  must  be  remembered 
that  he  had  never  before  been  away  from  London,  and 
what  his  life  there,  through  the  genial  neglect  of  his  par- 
ents, had  been. 

He  knew  less  of  his  father  than  he  had  learned  of  his 
great-uncle  in  the  six  weeks  he  had  been  at  Sharrow,  for 
his  father  had  never  talked  to  him,  or  tried  in  any  way  to 
see  into  the  mind  of  the  human  being  for  whose  life  he 
was  responsible.  To  him,  Sandy  was  "the  child,"  as  for 
a  very  long  time  he  had  been  "the  baby,"  and  Sydney 
Sharrow,  though  fond  of  him  in  a  way,  had,  in  ignoring 
his  possession  of  such  a  thing,  unconsciously  kept  from 
his  son  any  knowledge  of  his  own  personality.  They  were 
to  each  other  simply  the  father  and  the  child;  and  they 
were  utter  strangers. 

Sandy's  mother  was  different.  She  had  all  the  keen 
quickness  of  insight  of  French  women,  and  she  knew  that 
her  boy  was  a  person  and  an  intelligence,  but  she  was  so 
impregnably  selfish  that  she  did  not  care  in  the  least  what 
he  or  anyone  else  might  be  thinking  about;  so,  as  one's 
thoughts  in  childhood  form  the  alembic  in  which  is  dis- 

48 


SHARROW  49 

tilled  the  ultimate  essence  of  one's  character,  she,  too,  was 
an  utter  stranger  to  the  little  boy  whose  lack  of  beauty 
offended  her. 

So  Sandy  had  built  for  himself  a  small  house  of  ideas 
and  dreams,  incorrect  for  the  most  part,  and  absurd,  but 
still  his  mental  home ;  and  therein  he  had  dwelt,  ignorant, 
vaguely  lonely,  convinced  without  bitterness  of  his  own  lack 
of  consequence,  years  younger,  in  spite  of  the  gravity  and 
courtesy  of  his  manner,  than  most  boys  of  his  age. 

Then  he  had  come  to  Sharrow,  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
houses  in  England,  full  to  the  brim  of  historical  interest, 
and,  most  wonderful  of  all,  he  found  that  he  was  expected 
by  that  strange  old  man,  its  present  owner,  to  love  the  place 
and  to  take  pride  in  it,  because  he  bore  its  name. 

In  the  six  weeks  of  his  stay  he  had  changed  very  much. 
In  the  first  place  he  had  been  furiously  angry  three  times, 
and  he  had  never  before  known  any  emotion  stronger  than 
childish  temper  that  could  be  easily  dealt  with  by  Bean 
and  her  ever-ready  slipper.  This  new,  governing  anger 
had  surprised  and  a  little  frightened  him,  but  he  was  at 
the  same  time  proud  of  it. 

Then  the  passion  of  admiration  that  had  sprung  in  his 
heart  for  the  old  house  at  the  very  first  moment  of  his 
beholding  it  was  a  feeling  so  strong  as  to  make  him  think 
of  it  as  a  kind  of  power  he  had. 

It  was  not,  and  never  would  be,  his,  yet  because  he  was 
a  Sharrow  there  was  in  him  this  deep,  reverent  love  for  it 
that  made  him  perfectly  happy  just  to  stand  on  the  wet 
lawn  in  a  cold  wind  and  look  at  it. 

He  had  never  loved  anything  before,  and  he  knew  it. 
Monsieur  et  Madame  were  his  parents,  and  he  loved  them 
in  a  way,  because  they  were  good  to  look  at,  and  kind  to 
him,  and,  though  this  he  did  not  understand,  their  quarrels, 
sandwiched  between  long  seasons  of  Victorian  courtesy  and 
amused  discourse,  were  picturesque  and  entertaining. 


50  SHARROW 

Bean  was — just  Bean.  She  had  washed  his  ears,  an  un- 
thankful task,  ever  since  he  could  remember,  and  had  a 
way  of  dragging  him  nearer  the  wash-stand  or  the  light, 
as  suited  her,  by  the  ear  under  immediate  operation,  in  a 
way  that  was  painful,  but  that  seemed  to  Sandy  like  a  small 
hitch  in  the  scheme  of  things. 

On  the  other  hand,  she  knew  all  the  fairy  tales  in  the 
world,  and  in  certain  moods  told  them  to  him  with  the 
charm  of  the  born  story-teller. 

He  never  analyzed  her  character  or  his  own  subjection 
to  her.  She  was — just  Bean. 

Cook  he  was  really  fond  of,  and  it  was  not  altogether  cup- 
board love,  for  Cook  possessed  real  charm.  Still — she  was 
Cook. 

Whereas  Sharrow,  the  House  Sharrow,  not  the  old  lord, 
was  a  thing  beautiful,  interesting,  engrossing,  and,  some- 
how, good.  Surely  it  was  good,  the  feeling  it  gave  one  as 
one  learned  to  know  it. 

Old  Sharrow  was  not  a  man  to  be  loved  by  a  strange 
little  boy.  No  one  loved  him,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and 
Sandy,  in  spite  of  his  great-grandfather's  little  blunder  in 
the  matter  of  a  date,  had  all  the  family  shrewdness.  He  saw 
quite  plainly  that  the  old  man  was  vicious,  uncontrolled, 
violent  and  selfish.  He  did  not  love  his  great-uncle,  but 
somehow  the  talk  in  the  Tower  Room  had  given  him  a  cer- 
tain respect  for  his  relative.  He  had,  of  course,  been  af- 
fected by  his  glimpse  at  the  one  great  quality  of  Lord 
Sharrow 's  nature:  his  respect  for  and  love  of  his  family; 
but  Sandy  did  not  explain  this  to  himself. 

As  the  train  sped  through  the  wet  night,  and  Paul  slept 
on  the  opposite  seat,  his  mouth  open  with  the  vacant  ex- 
pression of  those  afflicted  with  adenoids,  Sandy  uncon- 
sciously summed  up  the  old  man  in  one  word.  "Of  course 

he's  an  old  beast,"  he  thought,  "and  he  drinks,  but " 

That  "but"  was  the  defense  old  Alexander  Sharrow 's 


SHARROW  51 

guardian  angel  was  cherishing  for  him  against  the  Day  of 
Judgment. 

Sandy  had  said  good-by  to  the  house.  For  hours  that 
day  he  had  wandered  about  its  narrow,  intricate  corridors, 
losing  himself  several  times,  going  up  and  down  the  stair- 
cases with  which  the  old  place  was  honeycombed.  He  had 
gone  into  bedrooms  and  stared  solemnly  at  the  old  carved 
bedsteads,  touching  with  gentle,  curious  fingers  the  stiff, 
moth-eaten  brocades  of  the  curtains. 

He  had  crept  up  the  chimney  where  a  priest  had  lived 
hidden  for  a  week  in  Bloody  Mary's  time;  the  little  box- 
like  room  was,  although  very  stuffy,  full  of  what  an  artist 
would  have  told  him  was  atmosphere,  and  a  yellow  crucifix 
still  hung  on  the  wall;  he  had  beguiled  Mrs.  Puddifant 
into  showing  him  the  still  room,  where  bunches  of  herbs 
hung  drying,  and  where  pot-pourri  lavender,  and  violet 
balls,  quaint  essences  with  delightful  old-world  names,  and 
other  wonders  were  still  made.  (The  Babbage  women  had 
been  housekeepers  at  Sharrow  in  almost  unbroken  descent, 
from  mother  to  daughter,  since  James  I's  time,  and  Mrs. 
Puddifant  wras  a  Babbage.) 

"This,"  she  told  him  with  a  pride  he  vaguely  felt  to 
be  every  bit  as  respectable  as  his  own  feeling  for  the  old 
house  she  ruled,  "is  the  Babbage  nose." 

He  had  spent  hours  looking  at  the  pictures  in  the  gallery, 
dwelling  with  a  somewhat  gloomy  satisfaction  on  the  truth 
to  type  that  distinguished  his  forebears.  They  were  still 
Old  Horrors,  but  there  was  distinction  in  being,  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  horrible  in  the  same  way  that  had  afflicted 
the  Sharrows  of  the  fourteenth. 

He  had  even  gazed  with  pity  at  the  few  portraits  of  the 
ladies  who  had  had  the  honor  of  being  selected  by  the 
Sharrow  men  to  provide  the  world  with  successors  to  the 
name.  They  were  very  plain,  these  healthy  ladies  of  good 
pedigree.  The  pretty  Portuguese  maid-of-honor  whose  son 


52  SHARROW 

had  been  a  cripple  because  she  was  pretty,  was  in  eternal 
disgrace,  so  her  fair  face  did  not  adorn  the  walls 

M.  Forauvent,  the  chef,  whom  his  employer  always  called 
Volauvent,  was  rather  a  friend  of  Sandy's,  and  an  hour 
had  been  spent  that  afternoon  in  his  fascinating  vaulted 
kingdom. 

The  pestle  and  mortar  of  solid  brass  with  the  coat  of 
arms  raised  on  its  side,  in  which  had  been  crushed  pounds 
of  rose  leaves  to  make  certain  small  wafers  to  delight  the 
palate  of  Charles  II,  was  produced,  and  Sandy  had  studied 
it  in  enchanted  silence. 

The  great  people  who  had  come  to  Sharrow  and  left 
memories  of  themselves  within  its  walls  were  not  all  kings 
and  queens,  in  spite  of  the  wise  loyalty  that  had  always 
distinguished  its  possessors.  The  Sharrows  had  loved  not 
learning,  perhaps,  but  the  distinction  conferred  on  it  by  its 
owners,  and  hence  they  had  known  many  famous  students 
and  poets. 

Erasmus,  in  his  poor  Oxford  days,  had  been  brought 
home  by  Eric  Sharrow  one  summer,  and  on  one  of  the 
diamond  panes  in  the  room  where  he  had  slept  was  still  to 
be  seen  a  swallow  in  flight  that  he  had  scratched  there, 
initialling  it  with  the  date  with  a  diamond  ring  belonging 
to  his  host. 

Sir  Philip  Sydney  and  the  Sharrow  poet  (a  very  inferior 
one,  among  the  Elizabethans,  but  still  the  Family  Poet) 
quarrelled  over  a  speech  made  by  the  latter,  regarding 
a  lady  of  the  Court,  so  Sydney  had  never  seen  the  house. 
This  was,  of  course,  regarded  by  all  the  Sharrows  as  more 
his  loss  than  theirs,  but  the  fact  remains,  as  facts  will. 

On  the  other  hand,  Lyly  was  a  friend  of  our  poet's,  and 
a  frequent  guest. 

Then  there  was  Voltaire,  who  had  had  a  broken  but  long 
correspondence  with  Maud  Sharrow,  the  one  who  married 
the  Duke  of  Cressy  and  presented  him  with  the  indistin- 


SHARROW  53 

guishable  twins  whose  subsequent  intrigues  and  impersona- 
tion of  each  other  caused  the  world  so  much  amusement, 
and  trouble ;  to  go  back,  Spenser  told  the  story  of  his  cruel 
Rosalind  to  Hector  Sharrow,  one  summer's  evening  under 
the  old  elms  at  the  foot  of  the  south  terrace;  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  once  slept  in  the  room  with  what  for  some  reason 
was  called  the  Chinese  bed ;  probably  no  house  in  England 
is  richer  than  Sharrow  in  memories  such  as  these. 

But  our  Sandy  bore  in  him  the  seed  of  that  love  of  Roy- 
alty which  had  always  been  so  profitable  to  the  family.  He, 
too,  would  have  gone  to  Holland  and  returned  to  Scotland 
with  his  king.  He,  too,  would  have  fought  and  lost  an 
eye  at  Dunbar.  And  he,  too,  would,  above  all,  have  refused 
the  earldom  offered  after  Charles  landed  at  Dover. 

' '  Sire, ' '  the  story  puts  into  his  mouth,  ' '  I  thank  you,  but 
I  will  remain  Baron  Sharrow." 

And  Charles,  grateful  no  doubt  in  his  way  to  the  man 
who  had  shared  his  exile  and  fought  with  him,  smiled. 
One  can  see  it.  The  hasty  offer,  as  the  two  stood  a  minute 
apart,  waiting  for  the  completion  of  the  plans  for  the 
march  to  London,  the  older  man's  bent  head  but  firm 
words,  the  victorious  king's  charming  smile.  It  is  said 
Charles  laid  his  hand  on  his  friend's  arm.  "  'Ce  que  Char- 
reau  possede,'  "—he  quoted,  and  let  the  matter  drop. 

This  filled  our  Sandy  with  pride,  and  for  some  reason, 
his  queer  little  eyes  with  tears,  as  he  thought  of  it — and 
Paul  snored.  Yet  Sandy  was  only  an  outsider,  owing  to 
that  little  mistake  in  Bavaria  so  many  years  ago. 

The  final  stopping  of  the  train  at  Euston  woke  him 
from  a  broken,  happy  sleep ;  and  his  father  stood  at  the 
window,  with  a  worried-looking  man  in  a  shovel  hat. 

"Well,"  Sydney  Sharrow  asked,  when  the  parson  and 
his  boy  left  them,  "how  did  you  like  it?" 

Sandy  blinked  in  the  strong  light. 

"Very  much,"  he  said,   laconically. 


CHAPTER  X 

IN  thinking,  later,  of  his  own  life,  Sandy  Sharrow  always 
felt  that  Fate  had  divided  it  into  four  parts.  And  the 
first  part  ended  one  night  a  little  less  than  a  year  after  his 
visit  to  Sharrow. 

It  was  a  particularly  cold  December  night,  and  he  had 
just  reached  Victoria  Station  on  his  way  home  for  the 
Christmas  holidays. 

With  a  handshake  he  parted  on  the  platform  with  Ben 
Frith,  his  friend,  whose  father  had  come  to  meet  him ;  and 
then,  his  bag  in  his  hand,  left  the  station  intending  to  take 
a  cab. 

His  father  had  written  that  he  could  not  meet  the  train, 
and  Sandy  was  glad. 

Ben  Frith  was  a  London  lover  of  the  deepest  dye,  and  as 
no  London  lover  is  ever  content  to  love  in  silence,  Ben 
had  been  proselytizing,  and  Sandy  was  an  ardent  con- 
vert. 

Before  going  to  school,  London  had  to  Sandy  meant 
Guelph  Square  with  its  dull  "gardens"  wherein  snobbish 
children  gave  in  little  the  social  comedy  of  their  elders; 
an  occasional  walk  with  Bean,  who  had  a  niece  married  to 
a  pawnbroker  in  a  neighboring  thoroughfare;  a  vague 
memory  of  the  river  glinting  in  the  summer  sun ;  and  one 
fleeting,  fascinating,  dream-pregnant  hour  at  Madame 
Tussaud  's. 

But  Ben's  father  was  a  curator  at  the  Museum,  a  dreamy, 
vague  man,  like  Charles  Lamb,  only  without  his  powers 

54 


SHARROW  55 

of  expression,  and  Ben,  being  a  silent  child  who  never  in- 
terrupted, Frith  had  for  years  taken  him  for  what  they 
called  Evening  Walks. 

Thus  Ben  had  seen  much  of  this  dear  town,  and  Sandy 
was  fired  to  do  likewise. 

He  had  told  Ben  about  Sharrow — about  the  concrete 
Sharrow,  not  about  the  Feeling.  That  could  not  be  talked 
about,  even  if  it  were  explainable,  but  Ben  rather  scorned 
a  mere  house. 

' '  Wait  till  you  see  London, ' '  was  his  invariable  reply. 

And  now  Sandy  stood  at  the  corner  of  Vauxhall  Bridge 
Road,  alone.  It  was  half-past  seven.  He  knew  from  Ben 
about  the  marvellous  streams  that  every  night  but  Sunday 
flow  theatrewards.  He  knew  of  those  most  romantic  things, 
the  queues  awaiting  the  opening  of  the  pit  and  gallery 
doors;  he  knew  about  the  carriages,  miles  and  miles  of 
carriages,  creeping  in  orderly  sequence  to  the  great  doors 
of  the  theatres. . 

Something  of  the  magic  feeling  inspired  by  Sharrow 
came  over  him,  as  he  stood  there  under  a  street  lamp.  It 
was  going  to  be  wonderful.  Ben  was  right. 

A  tall  gentleman  in  clergyman's  dress,  with  a  little  girl 
in  either  hand,  crossed  the  street  to  where  he  stood,  and 
for  a  moment  the  lamplight  fell  on  them  all.  The  three 
looked  at  Sandy,  and  he  looked  at  them.  They  saw  an  ugly, 
red-headed  schoolboy  in  clothes  that  were  not  shabby,  but 
were  yet  too  small  for  him;  a  schoolboy  with  a  firm- 
pressed  mouth  as  though  he  were  thinking,  and  eyes 
that,  until  he  turned  to  look  at  them,  were  full  of 
dreams. 

He  saw  a  handsome  man  with  a  large  benevolent  nose  and 
the  flexible  lips  of  an  orator,  and  two  girls,  the  elder  about 
his  own  age,  the  younger  perhaps  about  ten.  They  wore 
ugly  blue-and- white  checked  frocks,  white  stockings,  ' '  pork- 
pie"  hats  trimmed  with  bunches  of  red  ribbons,  and 


56  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

strange  little  cloaks.  Sandy  remembered  these  details  all 
his  life,  as  he  remembered  their  faces. 

The  elder  girl  had  a  dark,  vivid  face,  with  heavy  eye- 
brows. 

The  little  one  was  as  pretty  that  night,  in  her  hideous 
brown  hat  and  cloak,  as  she  was  ten  years  later  in  the 
flower  of  her  glorious  youth.  Sandy  realized  that  he  had 
never  before  seen  blue  eyes  that  were  dark. 

A  great  van  lumbered  by,  and,  blocked  for  a  moment, 
barred  the  way  of  the  three  people. 

Sandy  was  staring  at  the  little  girl  with  such  an  ex- 
pression of  admiration  that  the  gentleman  laughed. 

"What  is  your  name,  my  boy?':  he  asked,  good-humor- 
edly,  but  in  a  way  that  made  Sandy  know  something  of 
interest  was  coming. 

"Sharrow,  sir." 

The  gentleman  nodded  his  head  with  satisfaction.  "Of 
course  it  is — I  knew  it !  And  what  are  you — or  were  you — 
looking  so  hard  at  my  little  girl  for?" 

The  little  girl  smiled  and  was  lovelier  than  ever,  but 
Sandy,  overtaken  by  a  fit  of  shyness,  bolted  away  without 
an  answer,  his  usual  courtesy  flown  to  the  winds. 

He  walked  down  Victoria  Street  into  Queen  Anne's  Gate, 
and  crossed  the  Park.  He  was  ashamed  of  his  rudeness, 
but  he  could  not  help  doing  what  he  had  done. 

It  was  just  as  Frith  had  said.  Frith  had  said,  "You 
can't  go  out  to  post  a  letter  in  London  without  having  an 
adventure. ' ' 

And  surely  this  was  an  adventure !  Even  now  he  could 
see  the  lovely  faces  of  the  two  little  girls,  and  the  smile 
of  their  father,  who  had  recognized  Sandy  for  what  he 
was. 

But  when  he  had  reached  the  far  side  of  the  Park,  and 
turned  down  Pall  Mall,  he  forgot  the  adventure.  It  was 
the  first  time  he  had  ever  been  alone  in  London,  and  it  was 


SHARROW  57 

night,  and — yes,  old  Frith  had  been  right.  Hundreds 
of  faces  passed  him,  happy,  miserable,  sordid;  well- 
dressed  people,  beggars — everyone  knows  what  the  boy 
saw  that  night,  and  many  people  can  imagine  what  he 
felt. 

In  carriages,  lovely  ladies  (all  ladies  are  lovely  in  car- 
riages, at  night,  when  one  is  Sandy's  age) — walking,  girls 
just  as  pretty  but — different,  somehow.  A  drunken  woman 
was  hurried  along  by  a  majestic  policeman.  Her  language 
reminded  Sandy  of  old  Sharrow. 

Before  the  Haymarket  Theatre  he  paused. 

"It  really  was  marvelous  last  night,"  a  beautiful  lady 
with  voluminous  pink  skirts  held  well  up  around  what  she 
believed  to  be  her  ankles,  said  to  the  man  with  her,  as  they 
hurried  from  their  carriage.  "Mrs.  Bancroft  is  the  most 
enchanting  little  thing " 

Sandy  decided  to  see  Mrs.  Bancroft. 

At  Piccadilly  Circus  he  took  the  wrong  turning,  although 
the  London-wise  Frith  had  given  him  careful  instruc- 
tions, and  turned  up  Glasshouse  Street.  Discovering  his 
mistake,  he  retraced  his  steps  and  asked  another  big  police- 
man to  set  him  right. 

The  next  thing  of  interest  was  a  sign,  "A.  Milliken 's, 
Silversmiths  and  Pawnbrokers."  This  place  of  business 
was  still  open,  and  A.  Milliken  obviously  doing  what  is 
known  as  a  roaring  trade. 

For  no  particular  reason,  except  that  he  would  have 
liked  to  shake  hands  with  the  whole  world  that  night, 
Sandy  went  in. 

But  A.  Milliken,  though  glad  to  see  him,  would  not  let 
him  stay. 

"You'd  better  cut  along  'ome,  Mr.  Sandy,"  that  gentle- 
man said,  coaxingly,  "this  is  no  place  for  a  young  gentle- 
man, and  Julia  Bean  would  give  it  me  'ot  if  I  let  you  stay — 


58  SHARROW 

Clara  would  be  delighted,  though,  if  you'd  go  down  the 
alley  and  into  the  'ouse " 

But  Sandy  would  not  stop. 

Sending  his  compliments  to  Mrs.  Milliken,  with  the  dig- 
nity and  grace  that,  inherited  no  doubt  from  his  French 
mother,  as  well  as  from  those  great  courtiers,  his  ancestors, 
distinguished  him  except  in  his  occasionally  shy  fits,  he 
went  his  way. 

Guelph  Square  was  very  dark  and  very  gloomy  after  the 
brightly  lighted  streets  he  had  left. 

And  it  was  cold.  There  was  no  wind,  and  the  bare  street 
stood  motionless,  as  if  frozen.  Outside  27  Sandy  stopped. 

His  feeling  about  the  divisions  of  his  life  into  distinct 
parts  was  not  wholly  retrospective.  He  had  a  kind  of 
vague  feeling  that  night  that  it  was  an  epoch-making 
one.  Something  had  happened,  or  was  going  to. 

Upstairs  in  his  mother's  room  there  was  a  light;  a 
shadow  flitted  across  the  blind ;  the  drawing-room,  too,  was 
lighted.  Inside  there  was  warmth,  and  food,  and  Monsieur 
and  Madame,  as  in  his  thoughts  he  still  called  them. 

Outside  it  was  cold  and  he  was  alone,  but — it  was  Lon- 
don: Ben's  London. 

On  the  doorstep  he  paused  again,  his  hand  on  the  bell. 
No,  not  Ben's  London;  his — Sandy's.  He  had  won  it  for 
himself  that  night 

His  father,  his  red  hair  ruffled  as  if  he  had  been  running 
a  nervous  hand  through  it,  met  him  at  the  drawing-room 
door. 

' '  How  are  you  ? ' '  he  said.    ' '  A  happy  birthday  to  you. ' ' 

Sandy  stared.  Never  before  had  his  father  remembered 
his  birthday. 

"How  did  you  know?" 

Sydney  Sharrow  laughed  nervously.  "Your  mother  told 
me.  It  is  a  curious,  a  most  curious  coincidence " 


SHARROW  59 

"Where  is  she — Mother,  I  mean?" 

"Upstairs.    She — she  is  not  well." 

Sandy  looked  round  the  unhomelike  room.  The  very 
tall  red  curtains  were  drawn  under  their  gilt  cornices,  the 
medallioned  carpet  looked  more  worn  than  he  had  remem- 
bered it.  The  chairs  looked  as  stiff  and  as  slippery  as  ever, 
and  the  lamp  smelt,  just  as  it  had  always  smelt. 

"Not  well?"  Sandy  was  not  alarmed.  Alarm  was  not 
the  feeling  in  the  air. 

"No.  You  may  come  up  and  see — "  Sydney  Sharrow 
coughed — ' '  them. ' ' 

"Them?" 

"Yes.    You — you  have  a  brother.    Born  this  morning." 


CHAPTER  XI 

CHRISTMAS  is  always  a  magic  time  to  an  imaginative 
little  boy,  and  that  particular  Christmas  was  the  most 
wonderful  of  all  our  Sandy's  little-boyhood. 

To  begin  with,  Sydney  Sharrow  had  apparently  found 
in  this,  his  second  fatherhood,  that  which  had  escaped 
him  in  his  first.  Sandy  never  again  wished,  even  sub- 
consciously, to  call  him  Monsieur ;  out  of  Monsieur  the  little 
mulberry-colored  creature  upstairs  had  created  Sandy's 
Father. 

Even  Bean  and  Cook  noticed  the  difference. 

"A  different  gentleman  entirely,"  Bean  declared,  with 
satisfaction,  and  Cook  nodded  genially.  She  disliked  her 
master,  but  she  was  a  good  soul  and  rejoiced  in  the  bits 
of  good  luck  that  came  to  others. 

"About  time,"  she  qualified  her  approval  with.  "It's 
Sandy  as  '11  see  the  change." 

Sandy  did. 

His  mother,  too,  prettier  than  ever  in  her  new  pallor 
and  slenderness,  adorned  with  lace  and  ribbons,  and  as 
pleased  with  her  baby  as  if  it  had  been  a  toy,  and  she  a 
child,  seemed  to  love  Sandy  more  than  before.  He  was  still 
a  trifle  distant  in  his  manner  toward  her,  as  her  former 
ways  had  taught  him  to  be,  but  his  politeness  gradually 
thawed,  in  the  warm,  steamy,  scented  atmosphere  of  the 
nursery  at  bath-time. 

Little  Syd,  handsome  as  he  was  to  become  later,  was  in 
the  days  of  his  extreme  newness  as  ugly  as  most  other  small 
infants. 

GO 


SHARROW  61 

He  was  indefinite  as  to  feature,  deplorably  hairless,  and 
of  a  strange  over-ripe  hue.  As  a  generic  specimen  he  needs 
no  description.  But  to  Sandy  he  was  George  MacDonald's 
"Baby  Dear"  just  dropped  from  the  skies,  whence,  as  the 
Scottish  poet  declares,  he  had  got  his  eyes  of  blue. 

His  eyes  were  to  be  a  melting  hazel,  splashed  with  dark 
grey,  but  that  Christmas  they  were  of  the  milky  purple 
common  to  his  age.  He  was  a  tiresome  baby  and  frequently 
yelled;  to  Sandy  there  was  music  in  his  wildest  and  most 
sustained  shrieks. 

Bony  Sandy,  with  a  pillow  on  his  uncushioned  knees, 
was  sometimes  allowed  to  hold  the  angel,  and  his  ecstasy 
was  strange  to  see.  The  arrival  of  Syd  had  been  a  complete 
surprise  to  him,  and  he  was  even  now  not  quite  certain 
whence  the  child  had  come.  He  had  outgrown  the  belief 
common  to  children  on  this  nice  point,  but  he  had  as  yet 
acquired  no  other  to  supersede  it.  The  subject  had  never 
interested  him. 

But  one  evening  when  his  mother  had  gone  to  sleep,  and 
he  and  his  father  in  their  new  companionship  sat  together 
by  the  library  fire,  Sandy  approached  it. 

"Father,"  he  asked,  point  blank,  "how  do  little  babies 
come  ? ' ' 

Sydney  Sharrow  started.  He  was  an  easy-going  man 
who  explained  his  mental  laziness  by  saying  that  he  took 
things  as  they  came.  He  had  never  given  a  thought  to  this 
side  of  his  son's  development,  and  for  a  moment  was  dis- 
concerted. 

Then  he  said,  simply,  "Oh,  you  want  to  know  about 
that?  Then  I '11  tell  you." 

And  Sandy  listened  gravely,  while  his  father  did  what 
the  Germans  call  sexually  enlighten  him. 

Sharrow  did  his  part  well.  He  was  graphic,  clear,  clean. 
And  Sandy  accepted  his  new  knowledge  in  the  same 
way. 


62  SHARROW 

After  a  very  short  version  of  the  usual  lecture  had  been 
added  to  the  facts,  the  father  said,  "So  there  you  are, 
my  boy!" 

And  Sandy,  staring  into  the  fire,  repeated  slowly,  "So 
there  I  am." 

He  never  forgot  the  scene,  though  at  the  time  it  did  not, 
thanks  to  his  father's  instinctive  skill,  either  particularly 
impress  or  particularly  interest  him. 

He  never  forgot  his  father's  grave,  polite  manner;  the 
crackle  of  the  wood  fire  through  the  words;  the  shadows 
on  the  ugly,  steel-gray  walls  against  which  the  books  made 
a  not  very  imposing  array. 

A  picture  of  Queen  Victoria  holding  the  infant  Prince 
of  Wales  in  her  arms  hung  by  the  mantelpiece,  and  some- 
how the  good  lady's  pretty,  proud  smile  as  she  bent  over 
her  baby  seemed  to  give  a  kind  of  benediction  to  Sharrow  's 
words. 

In  future  years  Queen  Victoria  and  the  little  Prince 
always  seemed  to  have  assisted  at  an  important  scene  in 
Sandy's  life,  and  perhaps  this  fact  added  in  some  obscure 
way  to  the  intense  loyalty  that  was  born  in  him. 

"A  queer  kid,  Sandy  is,"  Sydney  Sharrow  told  his  wife 
that  night  as  he  sat  with  her  during  young  Sydney's  late 
supper.  When  he  had  told  her  in  what  way  he  considered 
their  elder  a  queer  offshoot,  she  smiled,  her  sudden  brilliant 
smile  that  charmed  him  as  much  as  it  had  the  day  he  mar- 
ried her. 

"I  wonder  whether  he'll  be  like  you,"  she  explained, 
"or  like — the  ozzers." 

She  had  long  since  mastered  the  difficult  Britannic  "  th, " 
but,  like  a  wise  woman,  still  used  the  pretty,  soft  substitute 
for  it  of  her  early  married  life.  Her  husband  liked  her 
to  say  "ozzers,"  so  she  said  it.  Wherein  lieth  wisdom 
of  an  order  not  mean. 

"Like — the  Old  Chief?    My  dear  Antoinette,  my  father 


SHARROW  63 

was  dominated  by  his  wife,  as  you  know;  and  in  me,  my 
mother  dominates.  I  am  a  mistake,  as  a  Sharrow.  I  have 
none  of  their  faults  and  none  of  their  virtues.  Sandy  is 
different.  He  is  a  throw-back.  He  is  a  triple  essence  of 
Sharrow.  Be  quite  sure  of  that.  If  only" — he  broke 
off  and  gazed  absently  at  the  mossy  head  of  his  younger 
son  as  it  nestled  on  his  wife's  breast. 

She  understood.  "I  know.  If  only  they  would  all  die, 
the  old  gentleman,  the  cure,  and  the  boys.  But  they  will 
not.  Except  in  books,  people  don't." 

"I  don't  want  them  to  die,"  he  retorted,  a  little 
shocked,  as  he  often  was,  by  the  nakedness  of  her  opinions, 
"but  I  wish — I  wish  that  old  fool  of  a  grandfather  of 
mine  had  had  the  wits  to  get  married  properly." 

She  was  silent  for  a  minute,  and  then  she  said,  ' '  Sydney, 
my  dear,  I  am  so  glad  that  you  are  not  triple  essence  de 
Skarrow. ' ' 

"Are  you,  my  dear?" 

Very  Victorian,  the  little  scene,  the  stiffly  furnished 
bedroom  with  its  satin  striped  wall-paper,  its  ugly  engrav- 
ings, its  wool-work  fire-screen  whereon  disported  a  Chinese 
lady  with  most  un- Chinese  red  cheeks  and  modestly  un- 
Chinese  petticoats. 

Between  the  windows,  with  their  closely  drawn  red  stuff 
curtain,  stood  a  broad  muslin-hung  dressing  table,  like  a 
strayed,  shapeless  ballet  girl.  In  the  next  room  the  baby's 
nurse,  nearly  as  shapeless  but  not  in  the  least  resembling 
a  ballet  girl,  coughed  dismally  from  time  to  time.  Mrs. 
Humple  disliked  husbands  who  interrupted  her  baby's 
meals,  and  had  often  warned  her  baby's  mother  that  if  she 
talked  or  laughed  during  these  functions,  the  baby  would 
subsequently  have  pain  and  roar  in  the  night. 

Sydney  Sharrow  liked  his  wife  to  be  glad  he  was  not 
all  Sharrow. 

"Why,   dear?"   he    asked   presently,    as   Mrs.    Huinple 


64  SHARROW 

lumbered  in,  as  if  the  soles  of  her  feet  were  round,  and 
took  the  baby  away. 

"Because  for  a  mere  frivolous  French  woman  they 
would  be — very  unsatisfactory,  my  dear.  They  are  so 
bony  and  rough — mentally— and  they  only  think  of  their 
land.  Mon  Dieu,  rien  que  de  leurs  terres,  Us  pensent,  ces 
gens-Id!"  she  broke  out,  and  he  knew  that  she  meant  what 
she  said.  Only  at  moments  of  deep  sincerity  did  she  speak 
French. 

He  remembered  her  meeting  with  old  Sharrow,  at  the 
Royal  Academy  one  day  many  years  before,  and  how  the 
old  man  had  terrified  and  infuriated  her  by  his  gruff 
acknowledgment  of  her  existence.  He  had  no  right  to 
be  gruff,  for  Sydney  was  not  his  heir,  even  remotely,  and 
therefore  could  marry  to  suit  himself  alone,  but  the  old 
man  was  cross  that  day  and  he  hated  French  women  (after, 
it  was  hinted,  a  fairly  exhaustive  study  of  them). 

So  he  had  been  as  nearly  rude  as  possible,  and  Antoi- 
nette had  felt  her  beauty  and  youth  insulted,  and  never  for- 
gave him. 

"I  hope  Sandy — the  other  one — will  marry  a — a — 
something  quite  awful,"  she  went  on  vindictively,  as  Syd- 
ney rose,  "and  I  hope  he  will  be  very  fast,  and  very 
troublesome,  and  lead  the  old  bear — a — a  bear's  dance!" 

' '  Hardly  likely,  you  little  fiend.  Or  at  least,  he  will  sow 
his  wild  oats  before  he  marries,  and  then  marry  well.  They 
all  do.  My  God,  if  you  could  see  the  portraits  of  the 
wives!"  He  laughed. 

' '  Excellent  brood-mares,  without  a  doubt, ' '  she  answered, 
which  was  desperately  coarse  in  '75. 


CHAPTER  XII 

"MY  DEAR  MOTHER, 

Won't  you  please  write  and  tell  me  how  Syd  is.  It  is 
nearly  two  months  since  I  heard  from  you  or  Father,  and 
I  can't  help  worrying  about  him  -(about  the  baby).  I  had 
such  awful  dreams  about  him  last  night.  Ben  Frith  says  it 
is  because  I  had  two  goes  of  cheese  at  supper,  but  I  say  it 's 
second  sight.  Is  he  all  right?  Do  please  write  at  once. 
Did  you  all  go  to  Paris,  or  didn't  you?  Is  Father  all 
right  again?  I  was  rotten  in  Latin  but  did  awfully 
well  in  Greek.  That 's  because  Greek  is  so  pretty,  and  Latin 
so  ugly. 

I  got  here  yesterday,  and  Sandy  and  Keith  were  both 
already  here.  Paul  has  the  measles  and  couldn  't  come.  He 
is  going  to  be  a  parson,  Keith  says.  Glad  I  'm  not.  Great- 
uncle  has  been  having  gout,  and  is  as  cross  as  seven  sticks, 
but  he  seems  glad  to  see  me.  He  says  I  grow  more  like  him 
every  day,  but  I  think  he  says  it  only  to  be  nasty. 

Sharrow  is  looking  glorious.  I  do  love  Easter  anyhow, 
it's  such  a  nice  new  season.  Everything  is  as  green  as  it 
can  be,  and  there  are  lots  of  crocuses  in  the  park,  and  tulips 
and  things  in  the  gardens.  I  do  wish  little  Syd  could  see  it. 
I  told  Great-uncle  all  about  him  but  he  didn't  seem  inter- 
ested. Syd  will  like  playing  in  the  old  bowling  alley,  it 
won't  hurt  him  to  fall  down.  I  suppose  he  is  learning  to 
walk,  or  is  eight  months  too  young?  And  has  he  any  teeth 
yet  ?  A  fellow  here  says  he  ought  to  have  at  least  four  by 
this  time.  His  little  sister  did.  But  Ben  says  he's  only 
teasing  me. 

I  had  a  grand  gallop  this  morning  on  my  new  horse. 

65 


66  SHARROW 

His  name  is  Roderick  Dhu,  and  he's  a  beauty.     "Wasn't 
Great-uncle  splendid  to  give  him  to  me? 

Give  my  love  to  Father.  I  wish  Syd  was  old  enough 
for  me  to  write  to  him.  How  is  his  hair  coming  on?  Do 
write  soon. 

Your  affectionate  son, 

SANDY  SHARROW." 

By  which  it  will  be  seen  that  Sydney  Sharrow  and  his 
wife  Antoinette  had  not  written  to  their  big  son  for  weeks. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Sydney  was  in  Paris,  amusing  him- 
self after  a  row  with  his  wife,  and  she  had  gone  to  Brighton 
with  the  baby  and  quite  forgotten  the  boy  at  Marlborough. 

She  could  not  help  this.  It  was  her  nature  to  care  for 
but  one  person  or  one  thing  at  a  time,  and  for  the  present 
her  baby  engrossed  her  utterly. 

She  loved  her  husband,  but  they  had  always  quarrelled 
every  now  and  then,  and  when  they  did  so  they  always 
separated  for  a  time. 

As  to  him,  he  loved  her,  but  was  gaily,  irresponsibly  un- 
faithful to  her,  in  a  way  as  common,  though  less  frankly 
so,  in  '76  as  it  is  to-day. 

In  this  he  was  emphatically  not  a  Sharrow,  nor  in  his 
comparative  untruthfulness.  Being  a  gentleman,  he  con- 
sidered himself  truthful,  but,  being  other  things  as  well, 
his  instinct  was  always  to  avoid  trouble,  and  that  instinct 
has  made  more  liars  than  the  busy  devil  himself. 

So  there  they  were,  the  Sydney  Sharrows,  at  Easter  time 
in  1875,  the  father  in  Paris,  doing  those  things  which  he 
ought  not  to  have  done;  the  mother  in  Brighton,  leaving 
undone  those  things  (with  regard  to  her  elder  boy)  which 
she  ought  to  have  done;  and  Sandy  himself  at  Sharrow, 
both  doing  and  leaving  undone  with  the  innocence  of 
fourteen. 

And  the  old  house  laid  on  him  for  the  second  time  the 
spell  of  its  age,  its  beauty,  its  mystery. 


SHARROW  67 

Lord  Sharrow,  who  of  late  had  been  drinking  far  too 
much,  was,  as  the  boy  wrote,  very  cross  and  very  violent. 
No  one  pleased  him,  not  even  his  faithful  valet,  Waters. 

Sandy  the  Heir  bored  him,  not  altogether  unnaturally, 
for  Sandy  the  Heir  was  a  conventional-minded  youth 
busy  at  that  time  in  moulding  himself  after  the  ideal 
Etonian.  Keith  was  afraid  of  his  grandfather,  and  showed 
it,  and  so  he  was  nearly  hated  by  the  old  man. 

Our  Sandy  came  nearer  than  anyone  else  to  amusing 
his  unreverend  relation. 

"You  are  at  least  ugly  enough  to  deserve  my  considera- 
tion, ' '  he  told  the  boy,  the  evening  after  Sandy  had  written 
to  his  mother.  ' '  No  fine-lady  face  about  you  \ ' ' 

Sandy  grinned.  "No,  I  suppose  not.  I  shall  look  just 
like  you,  Great-uncle,  when  I  am  as  old  and  my  face  is 
as  red.  Particularly  the  nose,"  he  added,  meditatively. 

Lord  Sharrow  swore.    Then  he  laughed. 

"What  makes  my  nose  red,  do  you  think?"  he  asked, 
maliciously,  sure  that  this  question  would  floor  his  op- 
ponent. 

"Brandy,"  said  Sandy,  with  serenity. 

The  day  was  his. 

Old  Sharrow  was  a  tyrant,  but  he  was  not  a  bully,  and 
he  had  a  sense  of  humor  that  belonged  rather  to  our  gen- 
eration than  to  his.  Humor  was  not  rife  in  the  great 
Queen's  reign,  though  wit  was  more  often  met  with  than 
it  is  nowadays.  So  this  time  he  laughed  long  and  loud, 
and  gave  Sandy  a  sovereign  which  Sandy  would  not  take, 
saying  that  no  boy  ought  to  be  tipped  for  cheeking  his 
great-uncle. 

They  parted  better  friends  than  ever,  and  the  lonely 
old  man  sat  for  a  long  time  staring  into  the  fire  won- 
dering not  altogether  unblasphemously  why  the  gentle- 
manly Sandy  was  his  heir  instead  of  Sandy  the  Bold  and 
Bad. 


68  SHARROW 

The  next  morning  at  five  our  Sandy  and  Keith  crept 
down  stairs,  boots  in  hand,  and  paid  a  stealthy  visit  to  the 
larder  preparatory  to  a  long  tramp.  There  was  a  glorious 
feeling  of  adventure  in  the  air  as  they  stole  past  Lord 
Sharrow's  door.  It  almost  seemed  that  if  he  awoke  he 
would  instantly  slay  them,  and  that,  of  course,  was  a  sen- 
sation to  be  cherished.  A  board  creaked,  and  they  both 
turned  cold  and  slightly  damp  with  terror. 

' '  Husssh ! ' '  hissed  Keith,  who  was  the  more  articulate  of 
the  two.  Sandy  frowned  hideously,  and  for  a  long  moment 
they  stood  as  if  transfixed.  Then,  nothing  happening,  they 
went  on  their  way. 

Cold  sausage,  bread  and  butter,  milk,  and  quite  half 
of  a  large  lemon  cheese-cake  having  somewhat  assuaged 
their  appetites,  the  two  pirates  put  on  their  boots  and 
went  out  by  the  kitchen  door  into  the  morning. 

They  were  going  to  see  a  forbidden  person  living  about 
five  miles  away ;  half  a  gypsy,  wholly  a  poacher  was  Jasper 
Glidden;  a  man  of  low  and  mysterious  associates;  a  man 
versed  in  the  ways  of  ferrets,  and  rats,  and  prizefighters; 
a  man,  in  short,  who  had  been  warned  off  Sharrow 
lands,  and  to  speak  to  whom  the  boys  were  strictly  for- 
bidden. 

But  Glidden  was,  amongst  other  things,  a  breeder  of 
dogs,  and  according  to  the  valuable  information  of  a  stable 
boy  (secretly  related  to  him)  he  had  at  present  a  litter  of 
invaluable  animals,  one  of  which  Jim  knew  he'd  just  give 
away  to  the  young  gentlemen. 

And  to  secure  this  animal  the  contrabrand  expedition 
was  planned. 

The  morning  was  a  beautiful  late  April  one,  the  trees 
misty  with  lace-like  leaves,  the  grass  glistening  with  dew, 
and  in  the  distance  some  one  with  a  real  gift  was  whistling 
a  queer  little  fluty  tune  that  Sandy  had  never  before 
heard. 


S  II  A  R  R  O  W  69 

It  was  a  pretty,  simple  melody,  redeemed  from  entire 
commonplaceness  by  a  little  twist  at  the  end,  and  as 
the  boys  crossed  the  park,  Sandy  screwed  up  his  thin  lips 
and  began  whistling  it,  too. 

"Pretty  tune,"  remarked  Keith,  stopping  to  retie  his 
bootlace.  Sandy  walked  on,  whistling  under  his  breath. 

The  melody  seemed  to  him  a  part  of  the  morning,  an 
expression  of  the  feeling  of  beautiful  adventure  that  was 
abroad  in  the  green,  clean  world. 

Now  it  so  happened  that  the  invisible  whistler  was  an 
early  ploughboy  leaving  his  recent  job  for  one  on  a  distant 
farm.  He  passed  on  out  of  earshot,  after  walking  outside 
the  far  off  wall  parallel  with  our  adventurers  for  some 
three  minutes.  He  never  came  back,  they  never  knew  who 
he  was,  they  had  not  even  seen  him. 

So  Sandy  never  knew  what  the  tune  was ;  he  never  heard 
anyone  else  whistle  it  except  years  later,  a  servant  of  his 
own,  who  had,  as  he  expressed  it,  picked  it  up,  like,  from 
his  master. 

"Never  whistle  it  again,  Anderson,"  Sandy  said.  "I — 
never  whistle  it  again,  please." 

And  Anderson  never  did. 

The  boys  went  out  by  the  river  meadow,  wetting  their 
feet  in  crossing  the  stream,  and  then  tramped  along  the 
highroad  for  a  mile  or  two,  when,  on  crossing  a  big  bit 
of  common  land  they  achieved  the  presence  of  Mr.  Glidden. 
The  dog,  which  was,  in  another  way,  as  ' '  igstraordinary  an 
animal"  as  his  present  owner  declared  it  to  be,  changed 
hands  after  half  an  hour's  thrilling  parley,  and,  trammelled 
by  a  bit  of  rope,  was  led  by  its  new  masters  homewards. 

"Fine  dog,"  commented  Sandy  gravely,  as  they  reached 
the  stream.  "I  like  the  strain  of  bull  in  him,  eh,  Keith?" 

The  dog,  whose  hindquarters  sloped  in  a  way  suggestive 
of  the  swift  greyhound,  look  up  at  the  speaker  and  put 
out  its  tongue.  He  had  only  one  eye,  owing  to  an  accident 


70  SHARBOW 

occurring  shortly  after  birth,  but  Mr.  Glidden  had  pointed 

out  the  luminosity  and  beauty  of  the  remaining  one. 
"I  say,  Sandy,  he  almost  winked  at  you!" 
Sandy  and  the  beast  looked  at  each  other,   and  then 

Sandy  said,  "You've  named  him,  Keith.    A  winker  he  is, 

and  Winker  he  shall  be ! " 


CHAPTER  XIII 

IT  was  still  early.  The  clock  was  striking  seven  as  the 
travelers  reached  the  path  leading  to  the  little  Norman 
church.  Early  service  was  well  regarded  in  '75. 

Several  people  were  turning  in  at  the  open  gate,  and 
looking  up  the  path,  Sandy  stood  still. 

' '  There  goes  Mrs.  Burbage.  I  say,  what  a  bonnet !  And 
old  Tinker.  Oh,  and  Sally  Dingle.  Jolly  girl,  Sally 
Dingle." 

Then,  across  the  road  from  the  Vicarage,  even  now  nearly 
hidden  among  the  trees,  came  a  tall,  thin  gentleman. 

"Is  that  the  parson,  Keith?" 

"Yes.  Mr.  Wymondham.  He's  been  away  all  winter. 
One  of  his  children  is  delicate, ' '  announced  Keith  as  though 
he  himself  had  long  since  left  childhood  and  its  frailties 
behind  him. 

Winker,  it  was  plain,  did  not  like  clergymen.  As  the 
Vicar  drew  nearer,  the  bull  in  the  dog  for  the  moment 
predominated,  and  he  assumed  a  fierce  attitude,  strained 
at  his  rope  and  growled. 

The  Vicar,  his  thoughts  obviously  on  higher  things,  did 
not  notice,  and  then  something  awful  happened.  Winker 
jumped,  his  full  weight  on  the  rope.  He  jumped,  he 
growled,  he  was  a  beast  of  much  menace.  Sandy,  holding 
to  the  rope  with  all  his  strength,  endeavored  to  quiet  him, 
yet  swelled  with  pride.  No  nice  boy  wants  his  dog  to 
devour  a  clergyman,  but  there  is  no  doubt  about  Sandy's 
satisfaction  in  his  dog's  ferocity. 

71 


72  SHARROW 

Mr.  Wymondham  glanced  kindly  at  the  two  boys  as  he 
passed  and  was  about  to  make  some  remark,  when  the  rope 
broke  off  short,  and  the  man-eating  Winker,  propelled  by 
his  own  weight,  rolled  down  the  slope  and  was  stopped  by 
the  clergyman's  thin,  black  legs. 

Sandy  gave  a  cry  of  alarm  and  dashed  to  the  rescue, 
but  Winker,  lying  flat  on  his  back,  looked  up  at  Mr. 
Wymondham  with  a  craven  smile,  dangling  his  paws  idioti- 
cally. 

' '  Oh — I  'm  so  sorry, ' '  said  Keith. 

"Not  at  all,  Keith.   He — he  seems  an  amiable  dog." 

And  Sandy  and  Keith  were  left  alone,  the  sprawling 
boaster  between  them. 

After  a  minute,  shame  gave  way  to  mirth,  and  they 
were  laughing  helplessly,  when  someone  else  came  down 
the  path  from  the  Vicarage — two  people,  to  be  exact — one, 
a  tall,  very  thin  lady  in  brown ;  the  other,  a  little  girl  in  a 
pink  frock  and  a  mushroom  hat  round  which  lay  a  wreath 
of  roses. 

Sandy  stood  quite  still,  the  broken  rope  dangling  from 
his  hand. 

She  was  the  most  beautiful  little  girl  he  had  ever  seen. 

And — vaguely — she  seemed  familiar  to  him.  Had  he 
seen  her  before? 

"Good-morning,  Viola,"  Keith  was  saying. 

' '  Good-morning,  Keith. ' ' 

The  little  girl  had  a  prayer-book  in  her  hands;  she  was 
going  to  church. 

Nodding  to  Keith,  she  passed  on,  followed  by  her  gover- 
ness, who  presently  turned. 

"Oh,  Keith,  when  Mary  comes,  will  you  tell  her  to 
hurry,  please?  She'll  be  late,  otherwise." 

Winker  arose,  arranged  himself  truculently  in  a  sitting 
posture,  and  looked  up  as  much  as  to  say,  "I  am  a  dog  to 
beware  of." 


SHARROW  73 

The  bell  gave  a  final  tinkle,  the  church  path  was  empty. 

"Come  along,  Sandy — Winker  '11  be  hungry,"  said 
Keith. 

Sandy  glanced  at  Winker. 

"Who  was  that  girl?" 

"Viola  Wymondham,  of  course.  Isn't  she  pretty? 
Mary's  better  fun,  though.  Come  along." 

They  went  home,  and  after  a  hasty  breakfast,  Sandy 
broke  tacit  faith  with  Keith  and  went  out  again,  alone. 

He  went  back  to  the  church  and  during  a  prayer  peeped 
in.  She  was  there,  the  pink  girl,  her  face  hidden  in  her 
hands.  He  had  no  idea  how  long  matins  could  last,  and 
presently  wandered  down  the  slope  at  the  back  of  the 
church,  and  amused  himself  with  a  brook  that  ran  there, 
until  the  sound  of  voices  should  tell  him  that  Viola  Wy- 
mondham had  come  into  the  everyday  world  again. 

At  the  foot  of  the  slope  he  stood  still. 

A  pink-frocked,  flower-hatted  girl  stood  in  the  brook 
nearly  up  to  her  middle,  her  skirts  high-tucked.  She  waa 
poking  in  the  bed  of  the  stream  with  a  long  stick. 

Sandy  stared,  thinking  for  a  minute  that  it  must  be 
Viola.  Then  he  remembered  Mary,  mentioned  by  the  gov- 
erness. 

"Hallo!" 

The  pink  girl  turned.     "Hallo,  yourself!" 

"If  you  are  Mary  Wymondham  you're  going  to  catch 
it  from  your  governess,"  he  said  with  a  chuckle,  "for  not 
going  to  church,  I  mean." 

She  did  not  answer  him,  but  stood  with  her  dark  brows 
drawn  together. 

"Who  are  you?"  she  said  at  length,  adding  before  he 
had  time  to  speak.  "Oh,  I  know.  You're  a  Sharrow,  we 
saw  you  at  Christmas  time  on  an  island " 

"I  wasn't  on  an  island  at  Christmas  time.  I  was  in 
London." 


74  SHARROW 

"Idiot!  I  mean  an  island  in  the  street.  It  was  out- 
side Victoria  Station.  And  father  asked  you  if  you  weren  't 
a  Sharrow." 

Sandy  remembered.  He  did  not  remember  this  long- 
legged,  ugly  child,  but  her  beautiful  sister. 

She  explained  that,  having  run  down  to  see  if  the  lilies- 
of-the-valley  were  ever  going  to  come  up,  she  had  dropped 
her  prayer-book  into  the  brook,  and  was  fishing  for  it. 

Two  minutes  later  Sandy  was  in  the  water,  and  she  on 
the  bank,  drying  her  legs  with  tufts  of  damp  grass. 

And  when  church  was  over,  and  he  just  coming  out  of 
the  brook,  down  the  slope  walked  Viola. 

"Oh,  Mary,"  she  cried,  pink  with  haste,  "Miss  Car- 
bunkell  is  so  angry  with  you ' ' 

Sandy  stood  with  wet  legs,  looking  at  her,  and  as  he 
looked  he  found  himself  singing,  under  his  breath,  the 
ploughboy's  melody. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SANDY  was  not  a  romantic  boy,  except  in  the  matter  of 
Sharrow.  He  did  not,  as  boys  of  fourteen  sometimes  do, 
fall  in  love  with  Viola  Wymondham  at  that  most  untender 
age. 

He  did  not  write  poetry  to  her,  or  pluck  garlands  to  deck 
her  brow.  But  they  became  the  greatest  of  friends  and 
there  was  in  his  manner,  even  when  he  teased  her,  a  some- 
thing of  gentleness  that  Mary  never  experienced. 

Mary  of  the  high  cheek-bones  and  rather  Mongolian  black 
eyes  was  to  him  nearly  the  same  as  another  boy;  Viola 
was,  if  not  The  Girl,  at  least  Girl. 

She  was  a  good  child,  obedient  and  quiet-tempered,  and 
as  such  harvested  much  love  from  everyone  around  her. 
Mary,  rather  bold,  and  unbeautifully  brave,  joined  with 
the  others  in  adoring  her  sister. 

Day  after  day  during  the  Easter  vacation  the  four  chil- 
dren played  together  in  the  budding  summer  weather. 

Keith  and  Mary  were  usually  partners,  while  Sandy 
taught  Viola  various  things  she  had  never  dreamed  of. 
As  a  parson's  child  she  objected  to  birds'  nesting,  but  she 
loved  to  draw  the  leaves  aside  and  look  at  the  timid,  nest- 
ing mother.  All  her  life  she  loved  birds. 

They  had  games  of  cricket,  too,  but  Viola's  little  right 
thumb  got  hurt  one  morning,  so  that  in  the  future  Sandy 
always  trembled  for  her,  and  preferred  her  to  look  on. 

She  it  was  who  told  him  the  names  of  all  the  different 
flowers  as  they  came  up,  and  in  her  little  garden  the  boy 

75 


76  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

worked  manfully,  digging,  planting,  and  weeding,  while 
she  squatted  idly  by  his  side,  looking  on. 

She  was,  as  Keith  had  said,  delicate,  and  her  delicacy 
looked  like  laziness  when  one  did  not  know. 

Sandy  learned  to  recognize  it  in  a  very  uncomfortable 
way. 

They  were  coming  home  to  the  Vicarage  for  lunch  one 
warm  morning,  and  he  challenged  her  to  race  up  the  slope. 

"Miss  Carbunkell  doesn't  like  me  to  run,"  she  said, 
hesitatingly. 

* '  Nonsense,  Vi,  don 't  be  a  laze.    Come  along ! ' ' 

So  on  they  flew,  Sandy  gallantly  remaining  a  little  be- 
hind her.  Just  as  they  reached  the  top  of  the  slope,  the 
little  girl  paused,  held  out  one  hand  as  in  warning,  and 
dropped  as  if  she  had  been  shot. 

When  Sandy  reached  her  and  took  her  up,  her  head 
fell  back  on  his  arm,  and  the  dreadful  limpness  of  her 
neck  nearly  turned  him  sick. 

He  gave  a  loud  cry,  half  a  call,  half  a  shriek.  And  at 
the  sound  the  Vicar  came  hurrying  out  of  one  of  the  French 
windows  of  his  study. 

He  was  a  kind,  just  man,  but  at  the  sight  of  his 
daughter  lying  apparently  lifeless  in  Sandy's  arms,  he 
gave  vent  in  his  fright  to  a  few  sharp  words  of  reproof  to 
the  boy. 

"You  young  idiot!  You've  been  letting  her  run;  she 
may  be  dead " 

He  carried  Viola  into  the  house,  and  Sandy  stood  alone 
in  the  sunshine,  the  very  trees  crumbling  around  him. 

In  the  cool  study,  cold  water  and  a  few  drops  of  sal- 
volatile  brought  Viola  to  herself  in  a  very  short  time,  and 
she  was  soon  sitting  very  comfortably  enthroned  in  all  the 
glories  of  her  father's  leather  armchair.  She  and  the  Vicar 
adored  each  other,  whereas  Mary,  who  greatly  resembled  his 
late  wife,  the  good  man  treated  with  an  uneasy  politeness 


SHARROW  77 

rather  amusing  to  those  who  remembered  his  treatment  of 
Mrs.  Wymondham.  Viola,  who  was  quite  unlike  her 
mother,  the  Vicar — nearly  an  old  man,  although  his  chil- 
dren were  so  young — understood  and  idolized. 

In  one  of  his  writing-table  drawers  dwelt  a  blue  china 
box  always  full  of  sweets,  and  now  the  invalid  partook  of 
them  recklessly.  The  Vicar  said  little  to  her  of  her  faint- 
ing fit ;  it  was  considered  wiser  to  ignore  these  occurrences 
as  much  as  possible. 

They  talked  desultorily  of  pleasant  things,  the  little  girl, 
of  course,  enjoying  herself  with  great  thoroughness. 

The  Empire  clock  struck  one,  and  Viola  gave  a  little 
jump. 

''But  where's  Sandy,  Daddy?"  she  said.  "He'll  want 
to  wash  his  hands  before  lunch." 

Poor  Mr.  Wymondham  felt  a  pang  of  remorse;  he  had 
clean  forgotten  the  boy. 

"I  will  go  and  find  him,  my  love,"  he  answered,  and 
went  out  by  the  window. 

To  his  horror  Sandy  was  still  standing  in  the  middle  of 
the  lawn  where  he  had  left  him,  his  eyes  fixed  with  a 
strange  glassy  stare  on  the  window  through  which  the 
Vicar  had  come. 

"Sandy!" 

Sandy  did  not  move  for  what  seemed  a  very  long  time. 
Then  he  frowned,  cleared  his  throat,  and  speculation  came 
back  to  his  blank  eyes. 

"Is — is  she  dead?"  he  asked. 

"Nonsense!  Of  course  she's  not  dead!"  The  Vicar  was 
frightened  again  and  again  cross.  "Come  on  in  to  lunch. 
But,  mind,  you  must  never  let  her  run  again. ' ' 

"I  didn't  let  her,  sir.  I  made  her,"  the  boy  retorted 
quickly.  "She  said  Miss  Carbunkell  didn't  like  her  to 
run,  and  I  laughed  at  her — so  she  did.  It  would  have 
been  my  fault,"  he  went  on  doggedly,  his  mouth  in  its 


78  SHARROW 

grimness  so  like  his  great-uncle's  that  even  absent-minded 
Mr.  "Wymondham  noticed  it,  ' '  if  she  was  dead. ' ' 

"Never  mind  that.  Come  in  to  lunch.  Only  remember, 
never  let  her  run  again." 

They  went  into  the  big,  dark  dining-room  with  its  huge, 
buffet  like  a  catafalque,  its  ugly  old  portraits,  its  massive 
silver,  and  had  a  very  good  lunch  of  the  old-fashioned 
kind.  Sandy  took  a  big  slab  of  roast  mutton  on  his  plate, 
but  found  to  his  horror  that  he  simply  could  not  eat  it. 
He  had  no  appetite  for  the  first  time  in  his  life. 

He  never  forgot  that  meal,  to  the  horror  of  which  Mary 
added  by  giving  him  a  tremendous  wigging  about  his  crime 
in  allowing  Viola  to  run.  And  Viola,  who,  in  spite  of  all 
the  spoiling,  was  not  a  bit  spoiled,  ate  much  milk-pudding 
and  smiled  at  everybody. 

It  was  the  last  day  but  one  before  the  return  to  school, 
and  the  next  day  it  rained  so  that  Sandy,  who  was  af- 
flicted with  a  slight  sore  throat,  was  forbidden  to  go  to 
the  Vicarage.  To  console  himself  he  repaired  to  the  vast 
attic  with  Keith,  and  they  had  a  fine  game  of  hide- 
and-seek  among  the  myriad  heterogeneous  objects  stored 
there. 

Any  garret  is  interesting,  but  this  huge  old  place  at 
Sharrow  was  really  full  of  fascination,  it  had  been  a  store- 
house for  so  many  years. 

There  were  trunks  full  of  ancient  finery,  brocades  and 
velvets,  broken  chairs  and  sofas,  a  spinet,  boxes  full  of 
papers  that  looked  very  dull,  and  piles  of  dusty  books 
banished  from  the  library  as  it  was  improved.  There  were 
old  curtains  packed  in  camphor;  there  was  a  four-poster 
bed  without  a  mattress;  there  was  a  sedan  chair,  and  the 
bath  chair  in  which  Grandmother  Sharrow  had  been  drawn 
through  the  park  by  a  donkey. 

The  boys,  of  course,  loved  the  place. 

"I  say,  Keith,  let's  play  'I  choose,'  shall  we?" 


SHARROW  79 

Keith  agreed,  and  at  a  signal  both  boys  darted  about, 
peering  behind  and  under  things,  opening  boxes,  drawing 
aside  screens  and  chairs,  seeking  the  thing  they  should 
"choose"  for  their  own. 

Sandy  had  just  chosen  an  embroidery  frame  in  which 
still  flaunted  a  pernicious  bit  of  wool-work  of  the  sixties, 
when  the  other  Sandy  called  his  brother  from  the  foot  of 
the  stairs. 

"Keith — come  along  and  explain  to  Barker  about  the 
packing,  will  you?" 

Keith  departed  glumly,  and  Sandy  sat  down  in  a  corner 
under  a  very  cobwebby  beam,  and  looked  at  his  treasure. 
After  all,  it  wasn't  pretty.  He  would  choose  something 
else. 

"Hallo!    What's  that?" 

It  was  a  neatly  made  chest,  about  a  foot  long  and  a  little 
less  in  width,  with  a  rounded  cover  and  an  ivory  keyhole. 
The  wood  was  very  light,  with  a  narrow  border  of  some 
darker  kind. 

The  box  was  locked,  but  it  was  old,  and  as  the  boy  worked 
at  it,  the  hinge  gave  way  and  he  could  open  it. 

It  was  a  medicine  chest ! 

"I  choose  this,"  said  Sandy  aloud,  delighted  beyond 
words.  There  were  four  squat  bottles  with  glass  stoppers, 
and  engraved  flowers  on  their  sides.  There  were  four 
little  glass  boxes,  a  long,  rat-tailed  silver  spoon,  and  a  thing 
like  a  very  flexible,  narrow  paper-knife — a  powder  mixer, 
though  Sandy  did  not  know  this. 

And  in  one  of  the  boxes  there  still  remained  a  few 
grains  of  some  coarse  powder. 

A  most  enchanting  find. 

Sandy  sat  there  touching  the  things  lovingly,  sniffing 
at  the  bottles,  his  mind  back  in  Charles  the  Second's  time. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  chest  was  Georgian,  but  that  did 
not  spoil  the  boy's  dream. 


80  SHAKROW 

He  imagined  a  doctor  jogging  along  dark  lanes  on  his 
way  to  some  sick  person  with  the  chest  strapped  to  his 
saddle.  Possibly  it  had  even  been  taken  to  the  succor  of 
the  poor  king  himself,  who  might  have  been  taken  ill 
while  indulging  in  his  favorite  game  of  hiding  in  some 
luckless  gentleman's  chimney 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,  I  didn't  hear,"  Sandy  stam- 
mered fearfully,  for  it  was  almost  a  shocking  thing,  so  sur- 
prising was  it,  to  find  Lord  Sharrow  standing  before  him 
in  that  dusky,  dusty  place. 

"I  told  Keith  not  to  come  just  yet.  I  wanted  to  see 
how  you  amused  yourself.  So  this  is  it.  What  have  you 
found  there?" 

The  old  man  fumbled  at  the  hasp  of  the  nearest  window, 
and  as  the  dusty  glass  swung  inwards,  a  small  square  of 
watery  sunlight  showed  on  the  floor. 

"It's  a — a  medicine  chest." 

"Oh.    And  you  were  dreaming  over  it." 

Sandy  blushed.    It  is  a  horrid  word  to  a  boy,  dreaming. 

"No,  sir — I  was  just — imagining  things " 

Lord  Sharrow,  who  looked  very  old  and  very  frail  as  he 
sat  on  a  banished  wood-box,  took  the  chest  and  looked  at  it. 

"Very  pretty.  Someone's  travelling  medicine  cup- 
board." 

"Oh — I  thought  it  must  have  belonged  to  a  doctor." 

The  old  man  glanced  sharply  at  him. 

"Have  you  ever  heard  of  a  Sharrow  being  a  doctor?"  he 
inquired. 

He,  too,  opened  the  old  box  and  sniffed  at  its  contents; 
he,  too,  opened  the  bottles,  and  he  declared  he  could  smell 
spirits  in  one.  They  both  laughed  at  the  joke. 

From  the  floor  below  a  big  clock  boomed  out  five  strokes. 

"Tea-time,"  said  Lord  Sharrow.  It  seemed  that  there 
was  a  certain  wistfulness  in  his  voice,  and  in  his  eyes. 

' '  I — I  wanted  to  tell  you,  my  boy, ' '  he  began,  as  he  rose, 


SHARROW  81 

' '  but — there 's  not  much  use. ' '    Then  he  burst  out,  "  It 's  a 
damnable  shame,  that's  what  it  is!" 

Sandy  stared.     "What  is,  Great-uncle?" 

In  the  quick  gathering  twilight  the  old  man  laid  his 
hand  heavily  on  the  boy's  shoulder. 

"That  you  are  not  my  heir." 

"Oh!" 

"Yes.  You  ought  to  be.  You  are  a  real  Sharrow;  you 
are  as  ugly,  as  red-headed,  and — and  pig-headed  as  the 
rest  of  us.  And  you  have  got  the  love  of  it  all — the  old 
name,  the  old  place.  You — feel  it.  That  young  prig,  the 
other  Sandy,  would  as  soon  own — Blenheim  Palace  as  Shar- 
row!" 

Sandy  did  not  speak,  but  he  understood.  Sharrow  was 
in  his  very  bones  that  afternoon. 

"Where's  that  ring  I  gave  you?"  went  on  his  great- 
uncle  suddenly. 

"On  my  watch-chain.     Mother  said " 

' '  Never  mind  what  your  mother  said.  You  are  to  wear  it 
on  your  finger — from  this  day  on.  Do  you  understand?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Well — don't  forget.  And — when  I  die,  you  are  to 
have  five  hundred  a  year  of  your  own.  It's  all  I  can 
leave  away  from  my  heir,  and  you  shall  have  every  penny 
of  it." 

Sandy  stammered  something  incoherent.  Five  hundred 
a  year  of  his  own  at  his  great-uncle's  death  meant  nothing 
to  him.  He  was  embarrassed  and  miserable  in  the  presence 
of  an  emotion  he  hardly  understood,  and,  though  grateful 
in  a  vague  way,  he  wanted  to  run  downstairs  and  get  out 
of  doors. 

The  old  man  suddenly  understood  and  released  him. 

"There — you  may  go  on  ahead.  Take  the  medicine  chest 
to  my  room  and  I'll  have  it  cleaned  and  put  in  order,  and 
you  may  have  it.  It 's  of  no  intrinsic  value,  but — you  like 


82  SHARROW 

it.  Don't  you?"  he  added  again  with  the  sad  wistf illness 
of  the  old  trying  to  get  into  touch  with  the  young. 

"Oh,  yes,  sir,"  Sandy  answered  readily,  for  this  gift 
meant  more  to  him  than  that  future  one  of  five  hundred  a 
year.  "Thank  you  so  much." 

But  he  did  not  go  on  ahead. 

He  went  slowly  downstairs  with  the  old  man,  and 
presently  left  him  by  the  fire  in  his  study,  the  yellow  box 
shining  in  the  firelight  beside  him. 


PART  TWO 

AT  THREE-AND-TWENTY 

CHAPTER  XV 

ON  the  evening  of  the  21st  of  December,  1883,  Sandy 
Sharrow  and  Ben  Frith,  his  friend,  turned  out  of  Piccadilly 
Circus,  at  about  seven  o'clock,  and  went  along  Shaftesbury 
Avenue. 

It  was  a  wild  night,  the  air  was  heavy  and  nearly  greasy 
with  the  on-coming  of  a  fog,  the  streets  coated  with  a 
shiny,  slippery  mud. 

"A  real  London  night,"  Ben  Frith  said,  wriggling  his 
head  with  satisfaction  in  a  little  way  peculiar  to  him. 
' '  Makes  one  think  of  Dickens,  doesn  't  it  ?  " 

Sandy  looked  down  at  him.  "Makes  me  think  of  little 
Syd,"  he  answered,  his  ugly  face  tender.  "I  wonder  if 
he '11  like  his  watch?" 

"Like  it?  A  gold  watch  at  eight!  I  should  rather 
think  he  would.  I  know  someone  who  won't  care  for  the 
crest  being  on  it,  however, ' '  he  added,  a  minute  later,  dodg- 
ing two  stout  women  who  seemed  bent  on  reducing  his 
little  body  to  powder  between  them  as  they  struggled  to 
pass  each  other. 

' '  You  mean  my  great-uncle.  No,  he  won 't  like  it,  and  I 
don 't  care  whether  he  does  or  not. ' ' 

Sandy's  face  was  grim  now,  and  Ben  was  silent.  They 
afforded  a  great  study  in  contrast,  these  two  young  men. 

Sandy  was  over  six  feet  tall,  and  singularly  well-propor- 

83 


84  SHARROW 

tioned.  Even  women  realized  that  his  grace  of  bearing 
must  mean  strength,  but  men,  who  knew  the  significance 
of  proportion,  looked  long  at  him. 

To  crown  his  beautiful  body,  however,  remained  the  old, 
ugly  Sharrow  face,  intensified  by  manhood.  His  white 
brows  still  beetled  over  small  three-cornered  gray  eyes,  his 
nose  was  large  and  bony,  his  mouth  long  and  thin-lipped. 
And  under  his  immaculate  silk  hat,  which  was  slightly  on 
one  side,  one  caught  a  glimpse  of  very  red  hair,  now  well- 
brushed  and  glossy,  for  Sandy  was  a  dandy. 

Ben  Frith  was  so  small  that  he  might  almost  have  gone 
into  one  of  the  pockets  of  the  light  coat  his  friend  wore. 
His  face  was  paper-white,  his  brow  too  broad,  too  high, 
too  bumpy.  And  his  one  good  feature — beautiful,  happy, 
brown  eyes — were  hidden  from  the  casual  observer  by 
thick-glassed  spectacles,  behind  which  they  seemed  to  bulge 
like  those  of  certain  ants. 

The  friendship  of  the  two  young  men  had  lasted  without 
a  break  ever  since  they  had  met,  on  Sandy's  first  appearance 
at  Marlborougb,  and  it  was  one  of  those  beautiful  friend- 
ships that  boys  sometimes  keep  to  the  ends  of  very  long 
lives.  I  say  boys  keep,  because,  however  old  the  two  men 
may  live  to  be,  in  the  friendship  itself  they  remain  boys  to 
the  last. 

Presently  they  crossed  to  the  other  side  of  the  busy  street. 

Ben  spoke  again :  ' '  How  long  is  it  since  you  saw  him  ? ' ' 

"Just  two  years.  Let's  not  talk  about  him.  It  always 
makes  me  angry." 

Sandy's  frown  drew  his  brows  down  in  the  old  hideous 
way,  and  under  his  young  moustache,  which  was  the  pride 
of  his  heart  and  as  fluffy  as  a  small  bird's  breast  feathers, 
his  mouth  was  stern,  the  lower  lip  jutting  out. 

Ben,  however,  persisted  mildly  as  was  his  way.  "But, 
Sandy — it  would  be  nice  to  have  five  hundred  a  year,  now 
wouldn't  it?  Think  of  all  we  could  do  with  it." 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  85 

Neither  of  them  noticed  the  "we." 

"I  know.  I'd  love  it.  And  God  knows  I  need  it.  Syd 
has  got  to  go  to  a  good  school.  I  wonder  how  on  earth — " 
he  broke  off  abruptly. 

"He's  awfully  old,  Sandy."  Ben  took  his  friend's  arm 
as  he  spoke.  ' '  Why  don 't  you  make  up  with  him  ? ' ' 

"Because  he's  old?  Or  because  I  want  the  money? 
Shame  on  you,  Ben ! ' ' 

They  had  nearly  reached  the  far  end  of  the  crowded 
street  and  stood  waiting  for  a  break  in  the  traffic.  On  the 
near  side,  outside  a  small  public  house,  stood  a  cart  drawn 
by  a  miserable,  heart-broken-looking  white  horse.  It  was 
a  horse  whose  mere  aspect  sufficed  to  make  one  sorry  for  it, 
but  as  the  two  young  men  watched  it,  something  happened. 

Its  owner,  a  short,  burly  Italian,  came  out  of  the  public 
house  and,  climbing  into  the  cart,  struck  his  poor  beast 
with  his  whip. 

Perhaps  he  was  not  a  bad  man;  perhaps  he  had  chil- 
dren and  was  good  to  them;  perhaps  some  woman  loved 
him.  (Ben's  remarks  later.) 

But  h.e  was  tired  and  cross,  and  the  brick-hauling  busi- 
ness had  been  bad  that  day.  Also,  the  emollient  wines  of 
his  own  land  being  inaccessible  to  him,  he  had  been  partak- 
ing of  cheap  British  gin. 

So  when  his  horse  stumbled  and  fell  in  an  irritating, 
fumbling,  unnecessary  sort  of  way,  the  man  climbed  down, 
swearing  violently,  and  began  beating  it  with  the  wrong 
end  of  his  whip. 

"Sandy — I  say — stop  him!"  Ben's  face  had  a  sort  of 
white  tremor  that  Sandy  knew  meant  a  deep  craving  for 
blood. 

Sandy  stepped  forward.  "I  say,  stop  that,''"  he  said  to 
the  Italian.  "Stop  it." 

"Damn — a  you,  mind  your  own  b-beeziness, "  was  the 
answer,  and  the  force  of  the  blows  was  redoubled. 


86  SHAKROW 

It  was  a  disgusting  exhibition  of  sheer  cruelty.  Anyone 
would  have  been  justified  in  stopping  it.  But  when  the 
whip  struck  the  miserable  animal  in  the  eye  and  blood 
gushed  down  its  poor  white  face,  Sandy  lost  his  head.  He 
wrenched  the  whip  out  of  the  man's  hand,  and  threw  it 
down,  then  he  picked  the  man  up  and  in  a  moment  had 
bent  him  double  and  sent  him  spinning  after  the  whip. 

It  all  happened  in  the  drawing  of  a  breath.  The  usual 
mushroom-grown  crowd  had  hardly  had  time  to  spring  up 
from  under  the  paving-stones ;  Ben 's  expression  had  hardly 
had  time  to  change  from  the  bloodthirsty  to  the  terrified, 
before  Sandy,  his  own  face  as  white  as  a  sunburned, 
healthy  face  ever  can  be,  found  himself  under  arrest. 

The  policeman,  who  happened  to  love  animals,  was  sorry 
to  have  to  perform  this  particular  duty,  but  his  duty  it 
was,  and  the  two  young  men  speedily  found  themselves, 
together  with  the  Italian  (very  sick  and  very  much  fright- 
ened, and  much  more  uncertain  on  his  legs  than  was  strictly 
necessary),  on  their  way  to  the  nearest  police  station. 

Sandy  walked  in  silence,  the  peculiar  grace  of  his  car- 
riage, the  famous  Sharrow  walk,  accentuated  by  his  angry 
embarrassment.  Ben  trotted  beside  him,  casting  an  oc- 
casional anxious  glance  at  his  face. 

"Shall  I  go  on  and  explain?"  he  asked,  presently. 

"No." 

"But  Syd " 

Sandy  shook  his  head.  "No.  Perhaps  some  one  will  bail 
me  out — I  say, ' '  he  interrupted  himself  sharply,  and  stood 
still.  "I  say— Milliken!" 

They  were  passing  a  small  pawnbroker's  shop,  in  the  door 
of  which,  agog  with  the  pleasant  excitement  of  seeing  a 
gentleman  under  arrest,  stood  a  small,  fat  man.  On  hear- 
ing his  name,  he  came  forward,  pushing  his  way  through 
Sandy's  now  stationary  bodyguard  of  loafers  and  small 
boys. 


SHAEROW  87 

"Great  Caesar's  ghost!"  he  cried,  "if  it  ain't  Mr. 
Sandy!" 

Milliken  was  dirty,  he  was  not  shaven,  the  large  diamond 
in  his  checked  red  and  white  shirt  front  was  offensively 
false,  but  he  was  a  friend  in  need. 

Was  he  not  Bean's  own  brother-in-law?  And  had  he 
not  known  Sandy  since  that  gentleman  was  a  very  small 
one  indeed  in  embroidered  muslin  ? 

Sandy  explained,  and  Milliken,  thrilled  to  his  more  or 
less  disreputable  bones,  accompanied  the  party  to  its  des- 
tination. 

"Still  got  the  red  'air,  I  see,  sir,"  he  ventured,  "although 
you're  so  grown.  My  word,  but  you're  a  fine  big  gentle- 
man. Bigger  than  ever  your  poor  father  was,  sir." 

"Yes." 

"Julia  Bean  was  in  to  see  the  wife  the  other  day," 
continued  Milliken,  hopping  over  something  he  had  only 
just  perceived  to  be  a  component  part  of  the  group,  a 
strangely-built  white  dog,  "and  she  told  us  the  news.  To 
think  of  Master  Syd  being  eight  years  old."  Then,  be- 
cause he  was  a  sentimental  pawnbroker,  he  added,  "  'Ow 
time  do  fly,  to  be  sure,  sir. ' ' 

Sandy  shut  him  up  and  explained  briefly  why  he  had 
called  him.  Milliken  was  delighted.  Milliken  was  easy  to 
delight. 

Half  an  hour  later,  the  friendly  policeman  having  dwelt 
on  the  horrid  nature  of  Sandy's  provocation,  Sandy  was 
set  free  on  bail  provided  by  the  pawnbroker,  and  the  three 
men,  followed  by  the  strange-looking  dog,  went  back  to 
Shaftesbury  Avenue. 

"I'm  very  much  obliged  to  you,  Milliken,"  Sandy  said, 
as  they  reached  the  little  man's  door.  "I  should  have 
hated  to  spend  to-night  in  quod.  It's — it's  my  brother's 
birthday." 

"Is  it  now?    Bless  my  soul,  so  it  is,  so  it  is.    Why,  I 


88  SHARROW 

remember  the  day  he  was  born.  Clara  was  not  well  'erself — 
it  was  only  a  few  days  before  our  twins  was  born.  If  we 
might  take  the  liberty,  sir,  of  sending  the  young  gent 
a  small  token — it  would  give  the  wife  and  me  great 
pleasure ' ' 

The  little  man  darted  into  his  shop,  and  in  a  moment 
reappeared  with  a  small  silver-topped  riding  crop  in  his 
hand.  This  he  insisted  on  Sandy's  accepting,  and,  after 
renewed  civilities  and  thanks,  our  two  young  men  finally 
went  on  their  way. 

"The  trouble  is,"  Ben  was  saying  as  they  came  to  the 
Square,  "that  some  day  you  will  kill  somebody.  You  must 
learn  to  realize  how  strong  you  are,  dear  old  chap." 

Sandy  nodded  without  pride,  and  without  any  particu- 
lar interest. 

"I  know.  It's  my  temper  that  does  it.  Once  I'm  thor- 
oughly angry,  I  forget,  you  see.  I  say,  Ben — there's  the 
house.  Lights  all  over  it.  I  suppose  the  poor  little  chap 
has  been  waiting.  Let's  hurry." 

Ben  smiled.  He  was  of  those  who  give  everything  they 
have  to  everyone.  His  knowledge,  which  was  rather  un- 
usual for  so  young  a  man,  his  simple  art  of  living,  his 
very  scant  money — these  things  were  at  the  disposition  of 
anyone.  Only  one  thing  he  kept  for  himself,  the  mean- 
ing of  a  little  queer,  tender  smile  that  sometimes  came 
to  his  face.  And  this  was  the  smile  with  which  he  glanced 
up  at  his  big  friend  as  the  big  friend  said,  "I  suppose  the 
poor  little  chap  has  been  waiting. ' ' 

There  was  wistfulness  in  the  smile,  and  deep  love,  and 
something  like  mother-pity. 

It  was  quiet  in  Guelph  Square.  The  bare  trees  stood 
motionless  in  the  heavy  atmosphere.  The  threatened  fog 
was  beginning  to  creep  along,  rounding  the  angles  of  the 
houses,  blurring  the  lights,  deadening  the  sounds  of  traffic. 
The  two  young  men's  footfalls  seemed  loud  in  the  compara- 


SHARROW  89 

tive  silence.  They  walked  briskly  on  until  they  reached  27, 
whose  number  was  painted  in  white  on  the  ruby-colored 
fanlight  over  the  door. 

Sandy  stood  still,  looking  up. 

And  then  there  came  to  them,  from  a  half-open  window 
on  the  drawing-room  floor,  that  most  beautiful  and  thrill- 
ing of  all  sounds — a  boy's  voice,  singing. 

"Good   King   Wenceslaus    looked   out 

On  the  feast  of  Stephen, 

When  the  snow  lay  all  about 

Crisp  and  cold  and  even." 

If  Ben  Frith  had  had  no  idea  who  the  singer  was,  he 
would,  after  one  look  at  Sandy,  have  known.  Only  one 
person  on  the  wide  earth  could  bring  just  that  look  to 
Sandy's  face. 

As  the  song  went  on,  the  young  voice  as  pure  and  true  as 
an  angel's  must  be,  Sandy,  without  looking  around,  laid 
his  hand  on  Ben's  shoulder,  and  the  two  stood  thus  linked, 
while  in  the  drawing-room  little  Syd  sang  on. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

OPENING  the  door  with  his  latchkey,  Sandy  led  the  way 
into  the  house,  and  having  taken  off  their  coats  and  hats 
the  two  went  quietly  upstairs. 

The  singing  had  ceased,  but  some  one  was  playing,  and 
playing  very  well,  a  berceuse  of  Gottschalk  's. 

"Who  is  it?"  Ben  asked. 

"I  don't  know.    Probably  the  new  governess." 

Then  they  went  in. 

The  room  was  little  changed  since  that  night  nine  years 
ago  when  Sandy  had  learned  that  Sharrow  was  a  real 
place  and  not  just  a  picture. 

There  was  chintz  now  on  the  sofa  and  chairs  and  flow- 
ers in  vases  and  bowls,  but  the  tall  windows  wore  the  same 
ugly  red  curtains,  and  the  wall-paper  was  the  old  one. 

By  the  small  basket-grate  which  glowed  cosily,  sat 
Mrs.  Sharrow  dressed  in  flowing  periwinkle-colored  silk; 
near  her,  on  a  hassock,  his  long  hands  held  up  to  the  fire, 
Syd. 

As  the  door  opened,  he  jumped  up,  and  rushing  at  his 
brother  was  folded  in  great  arms  that  presently  lifted  him 
off  the  medallioned  carpet,  and  carried  him  back  to  the 
fire,  where  Ben  was  shyly  shaking  hands  with  his  hostess. 

Sandy  kissed  his  mother,  and  they  told  each  other,  with 
proper  gravity,  about  their  health  conditions. 

Then  Sandy  sat  down  and  inspected  his  brother.  He 
studied  him  lengthwise  and  breadthwise;  felt  his  arms 
and  bare  calves,  which,  under  baggy  black  velvet  knee- 

90 


SHARROW  91 

breeches  looked  over  thin  and  pale;  he  pulled  down  his 
lower  evelids  and  declared  him  to  be  ansemic ;  he  peered  into 
his  mouth,  and  was  satisfied  with  the  small  white  teeth. 

"You'll  do,  youngster,"  he  declared,  finally,  "you'll 
do." 

The  music,  which  had  gone  on  softly  during  these  pro- 
ceedings, now  ceased ;  and  the  player  approached  the  group 
by  the  fire. 

"Oh — Sandy,  this  is  Miss  Penrose.  My  son  and  Mr. 
Frith." 

Miss  Penrose  sat  down  by  a  small,  shiny  work-table, 
and  busied  herself  with  some  lace  which  she  was  mend- 
ing. It  was  a  broad  scarf  of  delicate  tissue,  on  which  were 
embroidered  flowers.  And  her  small  hands,  as  they  plied 
the  healing  needle,  were  nearly  as  white  as  the  lace. 

Sandy  did  not  notice  the  new  governess,  after  his  first 
bow,  but  Ben,  the  all-seeing,  did. 

And  he  saw  a  very  charming  person  indeed,  sitting  there 
in  the  lamp-  and  firelight. 

Miss  Penrose  was  about  seven  and  twenty.  She  had 
quantities  of  soft,  dark  hair  which  she  wore  in  a  kind  of 
coronet.  She  had  an  oval  face  of  a  smooth  ivory  texture, 
and  a  beautiful  little  red  mouth,  a  trifle  too  full,  but  very 
pretty.  And  her  eyes,  which,  as  she  worked,  Ben  could  not 
see,  were  edged  with  very  long,  up-curled,  dark  lashes. 

She  wore  a  russet  brown  silk  dress  adorned  with  miles 
and  miles  of  narrow  velvet  ribbon  of  the  same  color,  but 
round  her  neck  there  was  something  white,  and  soft,  and 
transparent,  and  her  under-sleeves  were  the  same. 

It  was  a  very  old  dress,  for  she  was  poor,  and  she  herself 
hated  it  with  a  bitterness  that  sometimes  urged  her  to 
tear  it  to  bits.  But  it  was  her  only  one,  and  she  had  re- 
cently refreshed  it,  as  the  French  say,  so  to  Ben's  ignorant 
eyes  it  was  not  only  lovely  but  quite  new. 

Presently  as  she  paused  in  her  work,  she  looked  up,  and 


92  SHAREOW 

lo!  her  eyes  were  as  blue  as  Mrs.  Sharrow's  dress!  Ben 
rubbed  his  thin  hands  together;  she  interested  him. 

It  was  a  cozy  scene,  and  Ben  enjoyed  it.  Antoinette 
Sharrow  had  always  been  a  pleasing  study  to  him,  even 
when  he  was  very  nearly  a  child.  He  had  first  seen  her 
young,  pretty,  interesting,  foreign  and  unlike  English 
women,  with  the  baby  Syd  at  her  breast.  The  observant, 
silent  little  boy  had  loved  to  watch  her  with  her  baby, 
which  was  at  once  her  idol  and  her  plaything.  He  did  not 
understand  in  what  she  differed  from  his  own  mother 
and  the  mothers  of  his  various  acquaintances,  but  he  knew 
that  she  did  differ,  and  the  difference  had  for  him  great 
charm. 

And,  indeed,  for  the  lover  of  miniatures  she  would  have 
been  interesting  to  anyone.  It  was  a  miniature  nature,  but 
as  a  small  lake  can  have  angry  storms  and  comparatively 
great  depths  as  well  as  the  ocean  itself,  so  in  Antoinette 
Sharrow  dwelt  all  the  passions  of  larger  natures. 

She  possessed  a  violent  temper,  an  astonishing  lack  of 
conscience,  a  jealous  love  of  her  husband,  a  mad  impatience 
of  all  trammels,  and,  after  Syd's  birth,  as  mad  a  mother- 
love — all  on  the  smallest  possible  scale. 

And,  on  her  husband's  death,  when  her  baby  was  four 
years  old,  a  tiny  revolution  took  place  in  her,  and  small 
walls  burst,  small  dams  gave  way,  all  her  emotions  flowed 
into  one  channel,  and  the  Frenchwoman  at  thirty-seven 
became  the  French  mother. 

The  change  had  not  occurred  unmarked  by  young  Frith, 
though  he  never  mentioned  it  to  Sandy. 

And  Sandy  never  noticed  it  at  all.  His  mother  had 
always  been  a  stranger  to  him.  It  was  the  older  boy  who 
observed  the  sudden  coming  to  the  surface  of  those  of  the 
French  bourgeois  virtues,  the  presence  of  which  in  his 
pretty,  flighty  wife,  Sydney  Sharrow  had  never  suspected ; 
it  was  Ben  who  watched  the  rapid  growth  of  middle-age  in 


SHARROW  93 

the  still  pretty  woman,  who  at  forty  dressed  as  do  others 
at  fifty-five. 

And  it  was  Ben  who,  when  Sandy  groaned  over  her  lack 
of  common  sense,  her  extravagance  (all  for  Syd),  her  dis- 
regard of  discipline,  her  exaggerated,  passionate  love  for 
the  child,  who  knew  that,  although  in  some  ways  a  bad 
mother  and  in  no  way  a  successful  one,  yet  Antoinette  was 
thoroughly,  and  to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else,  a 
mother. 

She  never  guessed  that  the  quiet,  unobtrusive  youth  with 
the  ugly  glasses  and  the  shy  ways,  understood  her  as  thor- 
oughly as  one  human  being  can  understand  another,  nor 
that,  as  time  went  on,  and  Sandy  once  or  twice  came,  in  his 
care  for  his  brother,  into  direct  opposition  with  her,  Ben, 
out  of  the  depths  of  his  comprehension,  argued  the  case 
from  her  point  of  view,  and  secured  for  her  at  least  a 
mitigation  of  the  guardian  brother's  displeasure. 

For  Sandy  himself  stood  well  outside  the  sphere  of  her 
motherhood.  Probably  she  often  forgot  to  remember  that 
the  immovable  young  man  whose  will  always  broke  hers 
was  other  than  a  to  her  rather  unsympathetic  guardian  of 
her  son. 

This  Sandy  did  not  mind  in  the  least.  His  father  and 
he  had  been  friends  for  the  last  four  years  of  his  father's 
life,  and  of  him  Sandy  had  many  warm  memories.  Syd- 
ney Sharrow  was  a  man  full  of  faults,  but  they  were  manly 
faults,  and  he  was  of  great  use  to  his  son  at  the  time  his 
son  most  needed  him. 

Ben  Frith,  that  night  of  Sandy's  twenty-third  birthday, 
was  thinking  of  these  things  as  he  sat  hunched  in  a  low 
chair  by  the  fire,  watching  the  little  group  in  whose  midst 
his  place  was  so  unexplained,  yet  so  secure. 

Sandy's  ugly  face  was  soft  with  happiness  in  the  fire- 
light; little  Syd,  a  very  handsome  boy  with  rings  of  silky 
black  hair  on  his  forehead  and  most  un-Sharrow-like  golden 


94  SHARROW 

brown  eyes,  was  happy,  too ;  Antoinette,  her  graceful  head 
bent  over  some  needlework,  was  happy.  He,  Ben  Frith, 
was  happy,  as  he  always  was  when  with  Sandy. 

And  Miss  Penrose,  was  she,  too,  happy?  Ben  wondered. 

Then  suddenly  Mrs.  Sharrow  rose. 

"Ah,  voild — it  is  nine.  Come,  let  us  look  at  the  pres- 
ents," she  said. 

Every  one  got  up  and  there  was  a  moment  of  ceremonious 
hesitation. 

Mrs.  Sharrow  then  drew  aside  a  tall  black  screen  that 
stood  behind  her  chair,  and  a  laden  table  was  revealed  in 
the  light  of  a  tall  lamp  standing  on  it. 

At  27  Syd  's  birthday  was  a  far  greater  festa  than  Christ- 
mas. Preparations  for  it  went  on  for  weeks  beforehand, 
and  even  now,  everybody  knew,  a  very  excellent  supper 
was  being  prepared  in  the  kitchen. 

Everyone  stood  in  front  of  the  table  in  silence  for  a 
moment,  and  then  burst  into  a  chatter  of  excitement. 

In  the  middle  of  the  table  stood  a  large  pink  cake,  with 
Syd's  initials  and  two  dates  on  it  in  silver  and  white 
dragees.  From  under  the  cake  flowed,  like  a  stream  after 
a  period  of  retirement  underground,  a  pair  of  embroidered 
braces. 

On  the  right  of  the  cake,  occupying  quite  three-fourths  of 
the  table  were  Syd's  gifts.  There  were  a  dozen  of  the 
finest  cambric  handkerchiefs  embroidered  by  his  mother; 
three  books,  one  of  which,  Ben  perceived,  was  Froissart,  in 
French ;  a  handsome  weather-glass ;  a  box  of  sweets ;  a  pair 
of  gold  sleeve  links;  an  elaborately  framed,  rather  bad 
copy  of  one  of  Murillo's  Madonnas;  a  tennis  racquet;  a 
pair  of  silver-backed  hair  brushes,  and  various  other  smaller 
objects,  presents  from  the  servants. 

Syd's  joy  was  delightful  to  behold.  He  had  a  charming 
way  of  expressing  himself,  and  his  eyes  literally  danced 
in  his  head  as  he  inspected  his  new  possessions. 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  95 

But  when,  finally,  Sandy  produced  his  gift,  a  very  beau- 
tiful little  gold  watch,  the  boy  fairly  threw  himself  into 
his  brother's  arms  in  his  ecstasy. 

Ben  watched  from  the  fireplace,  whither  he  had  with- 
drawn. 

It  was  a  pretty  scene. 

Presently,  as  Syd  sat  down  with  his  mother  on  a  distant 
sofa  to  show  her  all  the  beauties  of  his  treasures,  Sandy 
turned  rather  awkwardly  to  his  own  gifts. 

He  thanked  his  mother  for  some  silk  socks  and  a  box  of 
cigars,  shook  hands  with  Ben  on  discovering  a  pipe  in  a 
leather  case,  went  into  ecstasies  over  the  small  cuckoo  clock 
which  was  Syd's  gift — there  were,  Ben  saw,  real  tears  in 
his  eyes  over  this  last  monstrosity — and  finally,  with  a 
rather  red  face,  picked  up  a  tomato-shaped  pincushion  of 
scarlet  silk,  which  was  thickly  studded  with  pins  of  all 
sizes  and  kinds. 

Ben  cast  a  glance  at  the  governess,  who  had  gone  back 
to  the  piano  and  was  softly  playing. 

"I  say,  Mother — this — this  pincushion  is  awfully  jolly," 
Sandy  began,  holding  it  out  toward  her. 

Mrs.  Sharrow  looked  up  vaguely.  "Oh,  yes — that  was 
Miss  Penrose's  idea.  She  made  those  beautiful  braces  for 
Syd,  and  then  said  she'd  like  to  make  you  some  little 
thing." 

Miss  Penrose  smiled  as  Sandy  went  to  the  piano  and 
held  out  his  hand.  Her  smile  was  delightful,  because  it 
displayed  a  dimple  that  at  other  times  was  hidden  in  her 
right  cheek. 

' '  You  don 't  mind  ? ' '  she  asked,  her  eyes,  so  blue,  looking 
into  Sandy's. 

"Mind?  It  was  most  kind,"  he  returned.  "And — a 
pincushion  is  such  a  useful  thing,  you  know. ' ' 

But  he  saw,  Ben  knew,  neither  the  dimple  nor  the  blue- 
ness,  and,  Ben  also  knew,  she  saw  that  he  saw  neither. 


96  SHARROW 

And  this — the  pretty  mother  and  her  beautiful  younger 
son,  on  the  sofa,  their  heads  close  bent  over  the  gold  watch ; 
the  prettier  governess  smiling  at  the  ugly  Sandy ;  and  little 
Ben  Frith,  his  secret  smile  stirring  his  lips  as  he  watched 
his  friend — these  things,  in  the  tall  ugly  room,  with  its  red 
curtains,  its  fire  and  lamplight,  its  deeply  shadowed  cor- 
ners, its  worn,  cabbage-rose-bestrewn  carpet,  its  good  por- 
traits of  ugly,  long  since  dead  Sharrows — this  was  the 
scene  that,  a  moment  later,  greeted  the  eyes,  as  he  opened 
the  door,  of  old  Lord  Sharrow. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

FOR  a  long  moment  no  one  but  Ben  saw  the  newcomer, 
and  Ben  made  no  move.  Winker  gave  a  low  growl,  but  it 
was  unheeded. 

The  old  man,  and  a  very  old  man  he  looked  to  the  boy 
whose  eyes  were  full  of  the  youth  of  Sandy  and  Syd,  stood 
leaning  heavily  on  his  stick,  his  brows  bent. 

He  was  unbeautiful  and  savage-looking,  his  face  bore 
marks  of  dissipation,  its  lines  were  those  cut  by  self-will, 
selfishness,  unscrupulousness.  Ben,  who  had  never  seen 
him  before,  shuddered. 

Old  age,  whatever  sentimentalists  may  say,  is,  being 
after  all  only  a  form  of  decay,  never  beautiful  in  itself. 
Some  old  people  are  beautiful  because  their  lives  have 
been  fine  and  brave  and  kind,  but  even  they  are  beautiful 
in  spite  of  their  age,  not  because  of  it. 

And  Lord  Sharrow  had  not  made  for  himself  an  old  age 
either  pleasant  or  good  to  see.  He  looked  a  very  satyr  of 
an  old  man,  but  he  was  so  old  that  Ben  hoped  violently 
that  Sandy  would  not  be  too  hard  on  him. 

Presently,  as  if  by  instinct,  everyone  in  the  room  turned 
towards  the  door. 

Mrs.  Sharrow  gave  a  little  cry,  Syd  glanced  inquiringly 
at  his  brother,  Miss  Penrose,  always  correct,  rose  from  the 
piano  and  disappeared  into  the  dusk  of  the  far  end  of  the 
long  room. 

' '  Well,  Sandy  ? ' '  the  old  man 's  voice  had  an  acrimonious 
snap  in  it.  but  there  was  an  undertone  of  anxiety  as  well. 

97 


98  SHARROW 

' '  Well,  sir  ?  "  Sandy  looked  very  big  and  very  command- 
ing as  he  stood  silhouetted  against  the  yellow  lamplight. 
His  face  was  invisible. 

Civility  demanded  that  should  ask  the  aged  head  of 
his  house  to  sit  down,  but  the  Sharrows  never  cared  a  but- 
ton for  civility. 

There  was  a  short  pause,  and  then  Lord  Sharrow  said 
slowly:  "I  have  not  seen  you  for  two  years;  you  have 
sent  back  the  allowance  I  made  you;  you  have  refused  to 
come  to  my  house." 

"Yes." 

"So — as  I  am  very  old  and  have  no  time  to  waste,  I 
have  come  to  yours."  There  was  another  silence,  and 
then  the  old  man  added  suddenly:  "I  have  come  to  ask 
your  pardon." 

Sandy  came  toward  him,  his  hand  outstretched. 

' '  Thank  you,  sir, ' '  he  answered,  in  a  voice  not  quite  free 
from  the  lurking  grudge.  "I — of  course,  I  accept  your 
apology." 

There  was  a  little  bustle,  and  many  broken  phrases  of 
greeting,  and  when  the  moment  had  passed,  Lord  Sharrow 
sat  by  the  fire,  his  hostess  and  Sandy  near,  young  Syd  in 
front  of  him. 

"So  this  is  the  bone  of  contention,"  Lord  Sharrow  said, 
inspecting  the  boy  with  a  grin.  "Tant  d'ceufs  pour  une 
omelette!" 

Ben,  who  knew  that  Sandy  would  not  like  to  hear  his 
beloved  brother  called  either  a  bone  or  an  omelette,  with- 
drew, unseen,  from  the  group  by  the  fire,  and  joined  the 
governess,  who  had  gone  into  the  recess  formed  by  the 
curtains,  and  was  looking  out  into  the  dreary  night. 

"The  famous  great-uncle,"  she  said,  giving  the  words 
the  inflection  of  a  statement. 

"Yes.     He  looks  very  old,  doesn't  he?" 

' '  He  is  very  old,  and  very  wicked,  and  very  disagreeable, 


SHARKOW  99 

and  oh,  very,  very  rich!  I  know  all  about  him."  Her 
voice,  which  was  a  little  veiled,  was  musical  and  low. 

"Who  told  you?"  Ben  asked. 

"Mrs.  Sharrow,  of  course.  She  will  be  delighted  that 
he  has  come.  Sandy  seems  to  have  been  very  silly  about 
him." 

"Sandy,"  Ben  retorted,  accenting  the  name  a  little  dryly, 
"  loves  Syd,  and " 

"And  Silenus  didn't.  Oh,  7  know,"  she  repeated,  with 
a  little  toss  of  her  head,  whose  prettiness  was  plainly  visible 
in  the  light  from  a  street  lamp.  "And  when  the  old  man 
told  Sandy  to  invite  whom  he  liked  to  Sharrow  for  Christ- 
mas, and  Sandy  said,  'Of  course,  I  will  begin  with  my 
mother  and  my  brother, '  the  old  man  said,  '  I  '11  be  damned 
if >  " 

She  broke  off,  giggling,  and  as  only  a  very  attractive 
woman  can  giggle  inoffensively,  this  proved  her  charm, 
for  the  critical  Ben  looked  at  her  not  only  without  disgust, 
but  with  real  pleasure. 

' '  Hush,  they  might  hear  you, ' '  he  said,  peering  through 
the  curtains.  But  the  talk  by  the  fire  had  grown  louder, 
and  as  he  spoke,  Lord  Sharrow 's  voice  reached  them. 

" — though  I  was,  of  course,  perfectly  justified  in  re- 
fusing to  invite  to  my  house  someone  I  didn't  want." 

"Of  course  you  were,  sir.  And  so  was  I  perfectly  justi- 
fied in  refusing  to  go  to  a  house  where  I  didn't  want  to 
go." 

"You  were  a  pig-headed  young  ass,"  snarled  the  old 
man. 

"Then  I  was  a  natural  historical  zoological  freak  and 
ought  to  be  at  the  Zoo ! ' ' 

"Bravo,  Sandy,"  murmured  Ben,  who  had  for  a  moment 
feared  a  row. 

"However,  being  now  a  very  old  man,  and  a  very  lonely 
one,  and  being  bored  to  tears  by  my  excellent  heir  (who, 


100  SHARROW 

by  the  way,  is  spending  Christmas  with  the  excellent  and 
dull  family  of  his  excellent  and  dull  fiancee),  I  decided  to 
comfort  my  declining  years  not  with  apples  and  flagons, 
but  with  the  society  of  one  of  the  few  people" — his  voice 
wavered  a  little — "one  of  the  very  few  people  on  earth 
whom — I  like.  So,  Sandy,  will  you  and  your  brother,  and 
Madame  ta  mere,  naturellement,  honor  me  by  spending 
Christmas  with  me  at  Sharrow  ? ' ' 

Sandy,  who  was  now  standing,  hesitated,  frowning  a 
little.  Ben  clutched  the  stiff  stuff  of  the  curtains.  Was 
Sandy  going  to  refuse  ? 

Then  Syd,  who  had  the  knack  of  the  graceful  thing,  piped 
up,  "Oh,  yes,  Great-uncle,  we  will,  won't  we,  Sandy?  It 
will  be  great  fun.  Sandy  has  told  me  all  about  it — how 
jolly  it  is." 

' '  Good !  Then  that  is  settled.  And  now,  Madame, ' '  the 
old  man  went  on  a  little  hurriedly, ' '  will  you  give  me  some- 
thing to  eat  ?  I  am  very  hungry. ' ' 

Mrs.  Sharrow  started.  She  had  hitherto  occupied  the 
position  of  interested  onlooker,  but  now  she  stepped,  as 
hostess,  into  her  own  place. 

' '  We  are  going  to  have  supper, ' '  she  answered  prettily,  in 
French,  "the  birthday  supper,  and  I  will  have  it  sent  up 
at  once.  There  is  one  bottle  of  poor  Sydney's  Chateau 
Yquem  left — we  will  drink  your  health  in  it,  Lord 
Sharrow. ' ' 

Lord  Sharrow  watched  her  as  she  left  the  room. 

Then  he  took  an  envelope  from  his  pocket  and  handed  it 
to  Sandy. 

"Don't  open  it  now,"  he  said.  "If  you  had  been  nasty 
you  would  never  have  seen  it,  but  you  have  been  remark- 
ably civil,  Sandy,  for  a  Sharrow  accepting  an  apology. 
That's  one  of  our  worst  moments,  one  of  our  many  worst 
moments. ' ' 

Sandy  held  the  envelope  in  an  obviously  unwelcoming 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  101 

hand.  Ben  could  see  his  profile  now,  and  the  jaw  was 
protruding  a  little. 

He  was  about  to  speak  when  the  old  man  held  up  a 
warning  finger.  "Say  nothing  now,  my  boy,"  he  said, 
"and  when  you  do  open  it,  remember  that  it  will  mean 
for  the— B.  of  C." 

"The'B.  of  C.'?" 

Syd  was  staring  with  all  his  eyes,  and  his  great-uncle 
laid  one  hand  gently  on  his  arm,  looking,  unseen  by  the  boy 
himself,  at  him. 

Sandy  gave  a  short  laugh,  was  silent  for  a  second,  and 
then  with  a  low  "Thank  you,  sir,"  put  the  envelope  in 
his  pocket. 

"  'B.  of  C.,'  "  repeated  Miss  Penrose  curiously.  "What 
can  he  mean?" 

Ben  was  silent.  She  was  curious  in  a  frank,  inoffensive 
way,  but  he  was  not  going  to  tell  her  that  the  old  man  had 
meant  Syd,  under  the  pseudonym  of  the  Bone  of  Con- 
tention. 

"I  say,  Ben" — Sandy  was  facing  them  now,  and  it 
was  plain  that  he  sought  to  relieve  himself  of  the  embar- 
rassment of  further  confidential  talk  with  his  great-un- 
cle. 

Ben  and  the  governess  came  forward. 

"Let  me  introduce  my  friend,  Ben  Frith,  sir " 

Old  Sharrow  smiled  cordially,  his  tusks  gleaming  in  the 
firelight. 

"Delighted  to  meet  you,"  he  said.  "Sandy  used  to 
talk  about  you — in  the  old  days  before  the  war." 

Before  Sandy  had  time  to  introduce  Miss  Penrose,  his 
great-uncle  went  on,  "And  you?  You  are " 

He  held  out  his  hand,  and  she  took  it.  "I  am  Maggie 
Penrose — nobody  at  all — and  Sydney's  governess."  For 
a  moment  her  blue  eyes  gazed  straight  into  Lord  Sharrow 's, 
and  Ben,  as  he  watched  the  little  scene  which  seemed 


102  SHARROW 

strangely  and  disproportionately  full  of  intensity,  noticed 
in  the  ugly  old  face  and  the  lovely  young  one,  a  subtle 
resemblance. 

"Maggie  Penrose,"  the  old  man  said,  slowly,  "a  pretty 
name,  and  a  pretty  young  lady." 

Then,  as  Mrs.  Sharrow  came  back  into  the  room  and  told 
them  that  the  feast  was  ready,  he  added  to  the  girl, 
rising,  "And  you,  too,  will  honor  me  by  coming  for 
Christmas  to  Sharrow." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

SANDY,  his  dog  at  his  heels,  was  out  of  doors  before 
eight  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  Christmas  Eve. 

They  had  arrived,  his  mother,  Syd,  Miss  Penrose,  and  he, 
late  the  night  before,  and  he  was  impatient  to  see  the  old 
place  again. 

The  queer  feeling  he  always  had  there,  a  feeling  of  pride, 
and  love,  and  a  longing  to  be  of  it,  and  to  do  for  it,  that 
it  had  always  given  him,  was  on  him  doubly  strong,  he 
found. 

During  the  eight  years  intervening  between  his  first  visit 
and  his  famous  Christmas  holiday  quarrel  with  his  great- 
uncle,  he  had  been  down  many  times,  and  had  grown  to 
love  the  place  as  few  children  love  anything. 

Perhaps  had  he  had  a  motherly  mother  and  a  real  home, 
his  feelings  would  have  been  less  strong,  but  as  it  was  they 
grew  into  a  real,  deep-rooted,  silent  passion  before  he  was 
of  age. 

He  read  every  book  on  which  he  could  lay  his  hands,  in 
which  any  reference  to  the  family  or  the  house  was  made; 
when  he  had  learnt  enough  Latin  he  got  his  great-uncle's 
permission  to  go  through  the  old  papers,  deeds  of  all  kinds, 
papal  bulls  and  dull  things  of  that  sort  that  were  kept  in 
iron-bound  chests  in  the  great  library;  the  lonely  boy,  in 
a  word,  put  all  the  ardor  of  his  nature  into  this  love  for 
the  house  whence  he  had  sprung. 

And  old  Sharrow,  of  course,  gave  him  every  opportunity 
of  acquiring  more  of  the  knowledge  he  sought,  and  encour- 
aged his  passion  in  every  way. 

103 


104  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

The  other  Sandy  cared  not  at  all  for  such  puerilities. 
For  him  the  glories  of  cricket  and  boating,  the  satisfaction 
of  possessing  first  the  perfect  Eton,  then  the  perfect  Ox- 
ford manners.  He  was  an  excellent,  brave  young  man; 
he  rode  straight,  played  straight,  lived  straight.  He  told 
the  truth  and  feared  no  man.  But  he  had,  for  all  these 
good  qualities,  one  terrible  defect.  He  was  dull.  He  bored 
his  grandfather. 

And,  furthermore,  though  he  honestly  did  his  best  to 
hide  the  fact,  his  grandfather  disgusted  him. 

Old  Sharrow,  though  he  respected  the  boy's  attempt  at 
concealment,  was  far  too  shrewd  not  to  see  the  effect  some 
of  his  habits  had  on  his  heir,  and,  while  he  was  glad  his 
heir  had  not  these  habits  himself,  yet  the  knowledge  irri- 
tated him. 

Now  our  Sandy,  with  his  violent  temper  that  more  than 
once,  as  the  years  went  by,  got  him  into  trouble,  both  at 
school  and  at  Sharrow,  was  not  subject  to  small  disgusts. 

He  was  in  some  ways  a  throw-back ;  the  old  man 's  occa- 
sional fits  of  malice  made  him  angry,  and  he  hated  Paul, 
because  Paul  was  a  liar. 

But  seeing  his  great-uncle  drunk  did  not  cause  him  any 
acute  discomfort.  Drinking  he  regarded  carelessly,  as  did 
his  ancestors  in  the  reigns  of  the  Georges.  Swearing  and 
bad  language  had  no  distressing  effect  upon  him,  and,  in- 
deed, as  he  grew  older,  his  own  tongue  was  by  no  means 
dainty.  And  these  things  which  he  carelessly  accepted  in 
his  great-uncle,  his  great-uncle  observed  with  joy  in  him. 

"You're  fierce;  you  don't  mince  your  words;  you  like 
wine — later  you  will  like  it  too  well,  I  daresay,  and  you  will 
like  women  too  well.  But  at  least  you  will  be  a  man," 
old  Sharrow  once  told  him. 

And  as  Sandy  grew  taller  and  stronger,  and  the  rough 
vein  in  him  became  more  prominent,  the  old  man  openly 
rejoiced,  and  as  openly  lamented  that  the  other  Sandy,  and 


SHARROW  105 

not  this  one,  was  to  be  his  successor  in  the  old  house  they 
both  so  loved. 

Once  the  old  man  took  his  favorite  abroad. 

They  went  to  Italy.  Sandy  was  shown  great  statues 
and  great  pictures,  which  he  loathed,  and  some  of  the 
world's  great  scenery,  which  he  as  strongly  loved. 

They  stopped  in  Paris,  coming  home,  and  here  the  boy 
fell  in  love  with  the  most  beautiful  woman  in  the  world. 

"Now,  if  I  could  marry  her,"  he  declared,  as  they  stood 
looking  up  at  her.  ' '  She 's  big  and  healthy  enough  for  any- 
body, but — she 's  not  a  frump ! ' ' 

"No.  I  should  imagine,"  the  old  man  chuckled,  "that 
no  one  ever  called  her  a  frump." 

And  the  Venus  of  Milo  did  not  even  smile. 

Sandy  was  seventeen  at  this  time,  and  he  had  an  adven- 
ture. 

He  was  walking  in  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  one  morn- 
ing, when,  as  he  afterwards  told  his  great-uncle,  a  lady 
came  up  and  spoke  to  him. 

She  wasn't  very  pretty,  and  she  looked  rather  as  if  she 
had  just  emerged  from  a  flour-barrel,  her  face  was  so 
covered  with  powder. 

But  she  asked  him  the  time,  and  the  way  to  a  certain 
street,  of  which,  strangely  enough,  he  had  never  heard. 
His  excellent  French  surprised  her,  and  he  explained  that 
his  mother  belonged  to  that  most  delightful  of  nations. 

The  lady  then  invited  him  to  invite  her  to  lunch,  which 
he  promptly  did. 

"You  went  to  Foyot's,"  Lord  Sharrow  declared,  when 
the  story  was  told  to  him  later  in  the  day. 

"We  did,  and  we  had  a  delicious  luncheon,  and  coffee, 
and  wine,  and  liqueurs.  It  was  topping." 

The  old  man  looked  at  the  young  one. 

"And  then  she  asked  you  to  go  and  look  at  her  family 
photographs. ' ' 


106  SHARROW 

"She  did." 

"My  poor  Sandy!     And  you  went." 

"Oh,  no,  my  poor  Great-uncle,  I  didn't.  I  said  to  her, 
'Je  vous  remercie  infiniment,  ma  petite  demoiselle,  mais — je 
n'en  prends  pas.'  ' 

All  boys  have  adventures  of  different  kinds,  and  Sandy, 
of  course,  had  his,  but  he  told  no  one  of  them  after  this, 
and  whatever  they  may  have  been,  it  is  certain  that  they 
did  him  no  harm. 

He  was  a  little  rough,  a  little  unlicked,  but  he  was  an 
honest,  decent-minded  man  who  enjoyed  life  without  get- 
ting into  any  very  bad  scrapes. 

One  lady,  serving,  owing  to  a  temporary  eclipse  of  her 
family  fortunes,  in  a  bar  at  Cambridge,  did  her  best  to 
marry  him,  but,  although  he  presumably  succumbed  to  her 
ruddy  charms  for  a  time,  the  succumbing  proved  to  be  even 
more  temporary  than  the  downfall  of  her  family  greatness, 
and  he  presently  was  able  to  assure  the  anxious  Ben  that 
Gwennie  had  really  behaved  very  well. 

These  unimproving  reminiscences  are  necessary  because 
they  explain  more  or  less  what  kind  of  a  young  man,  and 
how  far  experienced,  Sandy  Sharrow  was  that  December 
morning  in  '85  as  he  walked  round  the  old  house  he  loved 
and  watched  the  sun  settle  on  it  for  a  fine  winter's  day. 

So  far  in  his  life  he  had  never  had  a  grudging,  envious 
feeling  against  his  cousin  Sandy,  and  he  had  none  then, 
but  his  love  for  the  old  place  was  nearly  a  pain  to  him. 

"By  Jove,  I  wish  I  didn't  feel  quite — quite  like  this," 
he  thought  inarticulately.  "When  the  Old  Chief  has  gone, 
I  shan't  be  over  welcome  here,  and " 

The  heir  and  he  had  never  quarreled,  and  were  perfect- 
ly good  friends,  but  there  was  no  real  bond  between  them, 
and  Sandy  resented  the  other's  indifference  towards  his 
future  possession  as  a  passionate  mother  might  resent  indif- 
ference towards  her  child. 


SHARROW  107 

On  several  occasion  during  their  boyhood  Sandy  had 
tried  to  convey  to  his  cousin  something  of  his  own  feeling 
for  the  place,  but  the  elder  boy  did  not  understand. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  wonderingly,  his  honest  gray  eyes 
looking  into  the  other's  sparkling  little  ones,  "it's  a  jolly 
old  place,  and  I'm  jolly  lucky  to  be  going  to  have  it, 
but " 

And  when  Sandy  groaned,  his  senior  told  him  to  chuck 
that  rot  and  come  for  a  ride. 

As  he  grew  older,  Sandy,  of  course,  became  shy  about  his 
love,  and  only  to  his  great-uncle  did  he  talk  of  it. 

Often  the  two  sat  over  the  fire  in  the  evenings,  or  walked 
slowly  through  the  rooms  by  day,  and  discoursed  on  the 
feeling  that  bound  them  together;  gradually  Sandy's  feel- 
ing changed,  and  he  found  that  it  was  not  the  house,  won- 
derful though  it  was,  nor  even  the  vast  estate,  that  held 
him  in  thrall. 

It  was  Sharrow  itself;  the  intangible  thing  that  through 
the  slow  centuries  had  grown  and  ripened,  and  become  a 
kind  of  magic  atmosphere  to  be  breathed  only  by  those 
in  whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of  those  men  who  had  had 
their  being  there. 

"Even  old  Dingle  seems  to  be  part  of  it,"  the  boy  de- 
clared once,  "and  the  Babbages,  and  Linter — I  can't  ex- 
plain, Great-uncle." 

"You  needn't — to  me.  I  understand,  my  boy.  And 
it  is  because  Dingle's  people  have  lived  here  and  served 
us  for  upwards  of  two  hundred  years,  while  the  'Sheep- 
shearers  '  was  built  in  Henry  VIII  's  time,  and  we  still  have 
the  book  with  the  rents  paid  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign, 
and  onwards,  always  by  a  Babbage,  or  a  Babbage  girl's 
husband.  As  to  Linter — Charles  II 's  barber  was  a  Linter, 
and  up  at  the  farm  they  still  have  a  glove  brought  back 
by  this  fellow  after  the  king's  death,  and  said  by  him — 
he  probably  lied,  but  still  it's  the  story — to  have  been 


108  SHARROW 

worn  by  the  king.  And  so  it  goes,  Sandy.  They  have 
intermarried,  these  people;  they  are  all  cousins,  or  nearly 
all  of  them,  and  thus  Sharrow  is  a  kind  of  vast  web,  well- 
knit,  strong." 

"And  in  the  centre  sits  the  old  spider — you!"  ended 
the  boy  with  a  laugh,  in  which  the  old  spider  joined. 

He  was  thinking  of  these  things  as  he  left  the  garden 
and  struck  out  across  the  wet  grass  towards  the  south  ter- 
race where  the  elm  avenue  was. 

He  would  go  to  the  village  and  see  some  old  friends  be- 
fore he  went  in  to  breakfast. 

The  Feeling  was  very,  very  strong  to-day  as  he  walked 
down  the  avenue  of  elms  under  which  that  hussy,  Mary 
Sharrow,  had  walked  one  never,  by  her,  to  be  forgotten 
evening  with  Edmund  Spenser. 

Even  Edmund  Spenser  seemed,  somehow,  in  the  general 
magic,  to  be  a  part  of  Sandy. 

Rooks  cawed  hideously  above  him,  whirling  against  the 
pale  winter  sky,  and  rooks,  too,  belonged. 

' '  Every  blessed  thing  does  belong,  old  Winker, ' '  he  said, 
aloud. 

He  was  glad — ah,  how  glad  he  was ! — to  be  back. 

He  had,  since  the  day  when  his  great-uncle,  jealous  of 
his  favorite's  love  for  his  little  brother,  refused  to  have 
the  little  brother  come  to  Sharrow  for  Christmas,  never 
referred  to  the  matter  to  anyone  but  Ben,  and  even  to  Ben 
his  references  had  been  few  and  brief.  But,  though  his 
anger  towards  his  great-uncle  had  never  for  an  instant 
wavered,  the  separation  from  the  old  place  had  been  to  him 
a  grief  deeper  than  the  griefs  that  most  young  men  know. 

It  had  had  one  good  effect;  it  had  driven  him  to  shun 
dreams,  and  to  work  hard  at  Cambridge,  but  always  in 
his  heart  there  had  been  a  dull  ache  which  he  was  liter- 
ally afraid  to  investigate.  He  felt  as  though  he  had  lost 
more  than  he  quite  dared  know.  And  now,  he  was  back, 


SHARROW  109 

and  his  great-uncle  had  been  very  generous,  and  openly 
begged  his  pardon,  thus  assuaging  his  pride,  and  Syd 
was  here,  too,  and  he  had  two  thousand  pounds  at  his 
bank,  and  Syd  was  to  go  to  Eton! 

The  thing  that  finally  broke  down  his  pride  had  been 
the  fact  of  his  great-uncle's  having,  unknown  to  him,  put 
Syd  up  for  Eton  years  ago,  because  Sandy  had  once  con- 
fided to  him  his  resolution  that  his  little  brother  must  go 
there.  When  Lord  Sharrow  told  him  this,  Sandy  melted 
quite  suddenly,  and  peace  reigned  absolute. 

To-day  he  would  show  Syd  everything — everything  but 
the  roofs,  that  is.  Their  beauties  were  too  fraught  with 
danger  to  be  displayed  to  the  precious  youngster. 

A  couple  of  deer  stood  and  watched  the  young  man  as 
he  crossed  the  glade  where  they  were  breakfasting.  They, 
too,  were  part,  he  thought,  of  it. 

And  then  he  heard  something,  and  turned. 

Standing  in  an  open  place,  where  the  sun  fell  full  011 
her,  was  Miss  Pen  rose,  wearing  an  absurd,  delightful  Lit- 
tle Red  Riding  Hood  cape,  the  hood  drawn  close  around 
her  face. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Sharrow,"  she  cried,  "how  wonderful  it  all 
is !  May  I  come  with  you,  and  will  you  tell  me  about  it  ? " 


CHAPTER  XIX 

IT  is  well  known  that  in  chemistry  certain  similar  par- 
ticles invariably  attract  each  other  and  form  themselves 
into  one  mass.  And  everyone  has  noticed  how,  in  places 
where  many  people  do  together  congregate,  after  the  first 
confusion  of  acquaintance-making  is  over,  the  process 
known  as  the  flocking  together  of  birds  of  similar  feather 
invariably  takes  place. 

And  so  it  was  in  the  small  party  at  Sharrow. 

Ben,  an  amusing  remark  of  whose  had  decided  the  old 
gentleman  to  invite  him,  and  who  had  promptly  accepted, 
noticed  this  flocking,  and  some  of  it  was  enlightening  to 
him. 

He  had  expected  Mrs.  Sharrow  to  flock  by  herself,  so 
to  speak,  and  he  knew,  of  course,  that  Sandy  and  Syd 
would  never  be  far  apart.  But  the  sympathy  between 
Lord  Sharrow  and  the  little  governess  was  at  first  a  sur- 
prise to  him. 

The  old  man's  pleasure  in  the  girl's  prettiness  was  not 
remarkable,  but  what  at  first  puzzled  the  onlooker  was  her 
evident  liking  for  him. 

And  liking,  he  soon  found,  was  not  quite  the  word.  It 
was  more  than  a  superficial  enjoyment  of  each  other's 
society  that  drew  these  two  outwardly  so  almost  absurdly 
dissimilar  people  together;  it  was  a  kind  of  natural  turn- 
ing towards  each  other  of  two  people  of  one  nationality 
in  a  strange  land. 

"They  seem  to  know  each  other — to  understand,"  Ben 
decided  presently.  "They  must  be  alike  underneath." 

110 


SHARROW  111 

So  the  strange  friendship,  which  was  more  like  a  mutu- 
ally advantageous  alliance,  went  on,  and  several  days 
passed. 

One  day  at  luncheon  it  was  seriously  endangered. 

Miss  Penrose,  who  had  been  for  a  walk,  announced  casu- 
ally that  she  had  met  near  the  church  the  most  lovely  girl 
she  had  ever  seen. 

"She  was  quite  beautiful,  Lord  Sharrow,"  she  went  on 
in  perfect  innocence  of  Sandy's  warning  frown,  or  the 
old  man's  lowering  face.  "Who  can  she  have  been?" 

"I  don't  know,"  answered  Lord  Sharrow,  shortly. 

"Have  some  ragout,  Miss  Penrose,"  Sandy  put  in,  "or 
shall  I  get  you  some  ham?" 

"Neither,  thanks.  But  you  must  know,  Lord  Sharrow! 
She  was  beautifully  dressed,  too,  all  in  white,  which  looked 
so  quaint  in  winter,  and — oh,  I  really  never  saw  anyone 
quite  so  beautiful,  nor — ' '  her  voice  softened,  and/  a  pretty 
note  of  real  enthusiasm  came  into  it — ' '  anyone  who  looked 
so  good.  She  really  was  like  an  angel." 

Old  Sharrow  pushed  away  his  plate,  his  jaw  working 
nervously.  "That — lady,  is  a  lady  whose  name  is  never 
mentioned  in  my  house,"  he  said,  evidently  trying  to  con- 
trol very  strong  anger.  "You,  of  course,  could  not  know 
this,  Miss  Penrose,  but  now  I  have  told  you." 

There  was  a  short  silence,  after  which  someone  cast  an 
inane  remark  on  the  troubled  waters,  and,  everyone  snap- 
ping conversationally  at  it,  order  was  restored. 

After  lunch  Sandy  buttonholed  Miss  Penrose. 

"I  say,  you  did  put  your  foot  in  it,"  he  cried,  boyishly. 
' '  It  must  have  been  Viola  Wymondham,  the  Vicar 's  daugh- 
ter, you  saw — very  fair,  was  she?" 

"Yes.  But  what  has  the  Vicar's  daughter  done  that 
her  name  is  taboo?" 

"Nothing,  of  course.  But  her  grandmother  jilted  my 
great-uncle  when  he  was  young,  and " 


112  S  HARROW 

The  governess  stared.  "Great  heavens !  You  don't  mean 
to  say  that  he  visits  the  sins  of  the  grandmother " 

' '  Yes,  he  does.  So  please  never  mention  her  again.  But 
I  know  you  won't." 

"No,  I  won't.  Will  you  give  me  another  billiard  les- 
son this  afternoon,  Mr.  Sharrow?  I  have  been  prac- 
tising. ' ' 

"Have  you?  Good;  but — I  can't  now.  I  must  be  off. 
I  am  rather  in  a  hurry." 

She  glanced  at  him.  "Oh,  well,  I  am  sorry  the  old  gen- 
tleman is  so  odd  about  her.  I  should  have  loved  to  meet 
her." 

Sandy  burst  out  laughing.  "How  artful  you  are,  Miss 
Penrose!  You  are  perfectly  right;  I  am  going  to  the 
Vicarage.  I  have  known  the  Wymondham  girls  ever  since 
I  was  so  high,  and  I  shouldn't  have  known  they  were  back 
but  for  you." 

There  was  malice  in  his  eyes  as  he  laughed  and  left  her. 
He  was  no  coxcomb,  but  he  was  no  fool,  and  he  knew  per- 
fectly well  that  the  pretty  governess  was  what  in  petto 
he  called  "after  him." 

And  she  saw  that  he  knew  it,  and  did  not  greatly  care. 

After  nine  years  of  good  luck,  bad  had  come.  She 
had  fallen  in  love  with  the  ugly  big  brother  of  her  young 
charge.  She  did  not  mind  Sandy  thinking  that  she  wanted 
to  flirt  with  him,  which  she  saw  was  all  that  he  had  as  yet 
perceived,  but  she  bitterly  resented  the  silent  little  Ben's 
keener  insight,  and  presently  sought  him  out  for  the  pur- 
pose of  lying  him  out  of  his  belief. 

"How  delightful  Mr.  Sharrow  is,"  she  began,  care- 
lessly glancing  at  a  picture  in  The  Illustrated  London  News 
as  she  spoke. 

Ben  grunted:  "Yes;  a  good  chap." 

"He — I  like  him  so  much." 

"So  I  have  thought." 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  113 

"Ah,  you  noticed?  Well,  you  are  a  silent  person,  Mr. 
Frith;  one  can  trust  you." 

Ben  rose.  "Don't.  I  advise  you  not  to.  I  am  liable  to 
attacks  of  the  most  terrific  indiscretion.  The  things  I  tell 
then — oh,  Lord  I" 

But  she  only  laughed,  and  she  was  so  pretty  when  she 
laughed  that  he  stood  looking  at  her. 

"Did  you  ever  meet  a  man  at  Cambridge — an  Oriel 
man — named  Butler?  Rather  clever,  I  believe." 

"Butler?  Stewart  Butler?  They  called  him  The  Mag- 
got. Of  course,  I  know  old  Maggot " 

"No,  no,"  she  interrupted,  "  'my  man's'  name  is  Cuth- 
bert.  Cuthbert  Charlton  Butler." 

Ben  reflected.  "No — I  don't  think  I  knew  him.  I  came 
down  this  term,  you  know — but  why  do  you  ask?" 

"Oh,  I  wondered.  He — Mr.  Sharrow — looks  so  awfully 
like  him,  that's  all.  It's  quite  uncanny.  Red  hair,  even. 
Well,  good-by,  I  must  get  my  things,  we  are  going  to  walk 
to  White  Shirley,  Syd  and  I." 

She  left  the  hall  where  they  had  been  sitting,  and  for  a 
few  minutes  Ben  stood  reflecting. 

"So  that's  it,  is  it?  A  resemblance.  I  wonder.  Mr. 
Cuthbert  Charlton  Butler.  I  believe  she  made  it  all  up, 
the  little  minx." 

But  he  did  not  believe  this,  and  it  was  the  exact  truth. 

The  little  minx,  who  had  made  it  all  up,  went  her  way 

rejoicing. 

************ 

It  was  a  dull  day,  and  a  little  later,  through  the  dullness, 
Sandy  came  home.  The  Misses  Wymondham,  but  that 
morning  returned  from  the  south  of  France,  were  both 
out  with  their  father. 

He  was  sorry,  for  Viola  had  been  his  only  girl  friend, 
and  he  had  not  seen  her  for  nearly  five  years. 

When  he  was  sixteen,  a  bad  attack  of  typhoid  fever  had 


114*  SHARROW 

made  a  temporary  invalid  of  the  little  girl,  and  an  aunt 
who  lived  near  Cannes  had  fetched  her  and  her  sister  for 
a  prolonged  visit. 

After  this,  the  southern  climate  proving  suitable,  the 
two  children  had  been  kept  there  off  and  on  for  the  next 
few  years,  and,  their  visits  to  Sharrow  not  coinciding  with 
Sandy's,  they  had  not  met. 

The  very  evening  of  the  day  of  his  famous  quarrel  with 
his  great-uncle,  they  had  arrived  at  the  Vicarage;  but  he, 
in  his  rage,  had  gone  without  remembering  their  existence, 
and  thus  from  his  seventeenth  to  his  twenty-fourth  year, 
Sandy  had  not  seen  them. 

However,  he  decided  he  would  call  again  the  next  day, 
for  see  them  he  must.  Viola  must  be  beautiful  now,  judg- 
ing from  Miss  Penrose's  description. 

He  chuckled  at  the  thought  of  Miss  Penrose.  She  amused 
him,  but  he  liked  her,  for  she  seemed  really  devoted  to 
Syd. 

Also,  she  was  very  pretty. 

He  was  met  in  the  hall  by  a  servant,  who  told  him  that 
Lord  Sharrow  wished  to  see  him. 

He  found  the  old  man  limping  uneasily  up  and  down 
his  little  white  paneled  sitting-room,  a  frown  on  his  face. 

"Where  have  you  been?"  the  old  man  asked. 

Sandy,  scenting  battle,  hesitated  for  a  moment.  Then 
he  said  quietly:  "To  call  at  the  Vicarage." 

"I  knew  it!     I  knew  it — and  I  won't  have  it." 

The  room  was  nearly  dark,  for  rain  was  coming  on,  and 
only  the  firelight  lightened  the  room. 

"You  won't  have  me  call  at  the  Vicarage,  sir?" 

"No,  I  won't  have  it." 

Sandy  frowned.  He  didn't  wish  to  be  angry  with  this 
poor  old  man  who  was  kind  to  him,  but  the  poor  old  man 
was  singularly  irritating  at  times. 

"I  am  sorry,  sir.    I  like  the  Wymondhams." 


SHARROW  115 

His  gentleness  surprised  Lord  Sharrow. 

"Look  here,  Sandy.  I  don't  usually  explain  things, 
but — those  people  did  me  the  greatest  injury  anyone  ever 
did  me  in  all  my  life.  They  are  my  enemies.  You — you  are 
my  guest,  and — and " 

"Mr.  Wymondham  never  injured  you,  sir.  As  to  the 
girls,  they're  almost  children." 

Lord  Sharrow  sat  down.  "Wymondham's  mother  made 
me — what  you  see.  I  was  not  a  bad  young  man,  Sandy; 
I  was  something  like  you — a  little  wild,  rough,  impatient — 
but — I  was  not  bad.  And,"  he  paused,  his  face  in  a  sudden 
leap  of  the  firelight  rather  piteous  in  his  pity  for  his  own 
youth,  "Cyrilla  Dallaford — well,  I  suppose  she  broke  my 
heart.  She  hurt  me  so  that  I  did  not  care  what  became 
of  me,  or  what  I  did — it  was  then  that  I  began  to  drink. 
Out  of  a  well-meaning,  gentlemanly  boy  she  made  a  des- 
perate adventurer,  a  man  who  spent  the  best  years  of  his 
life  in  trying  to  fight  and — in  failing.  Cyrilla  Dallaford 
was  my  ruin,  Sandy." 

"Cyrilla  Dallaford  has  been  in  her  grave  many  years, 
Great-uncle.  Can't  you  forgive  her?" 

"No,"  shouted  the  old  man  fiercely.  "Never.  I  never 
forgive.  We  Sharrows  don't.  You  will  not,  when  your 
time  comes.  I  hate  them  all,  Dallafords  and  Wymondhams. 
And  that  is  why  I  ask  you — my  guest " 

Sandy  bent  to  him  and  laid  his  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Very  well,  Great-uncle.  I  will  respect  your  wish.  I 
will  not  call  at  the  Vicarage  again,"  he  said,  quietly. 


CHAPTER  XX 

BEN,  when  told  of  the  interview  and  Sandy's  promise,  of 
course  approved  his  friend's  course. 

"You  couldn't  very  well  do  anything  else,  Sandy,  but — 
I  confess  I  am  surprised,  all  the  same. ' ' 

"Why?" 

"Because  it  wouid  have  been  far  more  like  you  to  insist 
on  going  to  the  Vicarage,  to  throw  the  cheque  into  the  old 
man 's  face,  and  to  rage  out  of  the  house  for  a  few  years. ' ' 

Sandy  laughed.  "I  jolly  nearly  did,"  he  confessed. 
"He  has  no  business  to  impose  his  sixty-year-old  feud  on 
me.  But — well,  of  course,  I  am  his  guest,  and  he  is  very 
old." 

Ben  looked  up  from  the  briarwood  pipe  whose  brown 
sides  he  was  caressing  with  the  palm  of  his  hand.  "Bosh !" 
he  said.  "If  it  wasn't  for  the  kid,  you'd  have  had  a  row 
and  cleared  out." 

Sandy  did  not  answer. 

The  two  young  men  were  sitting  together  in  Sandy's 
own  den,  which  was  none  other  than  the  octagonal  room 
in  the  tower,  whence  Lord  Sharrow  had  long  ago  watched 
him  explore  the  roofs.  The  room  had  been  "his"  for 
many  years,  and  was  still  full  of  his  boyish  treasures. 

It  was  a  pleasant  place,  though  small,  the  views  from  its 
windows  were  varied  and  beautiful,  one  of  them  giving 
on  the  park,  toward  the  church,  the  short  gray  spire  of 
which  could  be  seen  amongst  the  trees. 

Even  now,  at  night,  with  its  seven  curtains  close-drawn, 

116 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  117 

and  a  fire  burning  on  the  small  stone  hearth,  it  had  a  great 
charm  of  its  own.  The  curtains,  found  years  ago  by  Sandy 
in  a  trunk  in  the  attic,  were  delightful,  though  more  fitted 
to  a  boudoir  than  to  a  room  made,  all  but  the  floor,  com- 
pletely of  dark  gray  stone.  They  were  of  deep  red  silk, 
rather  faded  and  even  a  little  tattered  now,  since  Mrs. 
Puddif ant's  needle  had  for  ten  years  forgotten  to  attend 
to  them,  and  on  them  was  a  raised  pattern  of  bunches  of 
grapes,  in  the  same  color. 

Sandy  loved  his  curtains. 

The  friends  had  retired  early  to  this  eyrie  the  evening  of 
the  interview,  for  it  was  presumably  the  last  one  on  which 
they  would  be  free  to  do  exactly  as  they  liked. 

The  next  morning  Sandy  the  Heir,  Keith,  and  Paul 
were  coming  for  New  Year's  Day,  and  they  would  have 
to  be  polite. 

The  wind  had  risen  and  howled  around  the  tower  in  a  way 
that  enhanced  their  shut-in  coziness  as  they  sat  smoking. 

The  clock  struck  ten. 

"So  you  won't  see  the  Wymondham  girls  at  all  this 
time,"  Ben  observed,  after  a  long  silence. 

' '  Oh,  shan  't  I  ?  Of  course  I  shall.  I  only  promised  not 
to  call  at  the  Vicarage,  not  not  to  see  them.  I  shall  write 
to  the  Vicar  and  explain — he  has  always  been  awfully  kind 
to  me — and  then  I  shall  look  out  for  the  girls  from  here, 
and — meet  them  in  the  road." 

"From  here?" 

Sandy  rose  and  drew  back  the  curtains  from  one  of  the 
windows. 

"Yes.  See  that  bit  of  white  there  in  the  moonlight,  to 
the  left  ..of  those  cedars?  That's  the  road  outside  the 
Vicarage  gate.  They  can't  get  out  of  their  garden  with- 
out passing  over  that  very  place.  So  all  I  have  to  do  is  to 
watch  from  here,  see  which  direction  they  take,  and  hare 
after  them." 


118  SHARROW 

"Sister  Ann,  Sister  Ann !  But  you  can't  sit  here  all  day 
watching  for  them." 

Sandy  laughed.  "Every  morning  of  their  lives,  unless 
it  is  pouring  with  rain,  the  girls  go  for  a  walk  as  soon  as 
breakfast  is  over.  And  breakfast's  at  nine.  So — you  see!" 

They  stood  for  a  moment  looking  out  at  the  moonwhite 
world.  The  tower  was  so  high  that  the  country  spread 
under  them  almost  like  a  map.  Far  off  to  the  left,  they 
saw  White  Shirley  with  its  sleeping  factories  lying  in  a 
long  fold  of  the  river;  to  the  right,  Brocket  Wood,  the 
boundary  of  the  estate  on  that  side,  lay,  a  great  black  blot 
against  the  sky,  some  three  miles  away,  and  in  the  sky  the 
moon  sailed  along,  apparently  blown  by  the  wind,  through 
great  flakes  of  black-edged  white  clouds. 

It  was  cold,  for  Sandy  had  opened  the  window  wide,  but 
the  two  young  men  stood  disregarding  the  wind,  gazing 
at  the  lovely  country. 

"I  say,  Sandy,  what  is  that  big  house  over  there  by 
Brocket?"  Ben  asked,  leaning  out  and  pointing. 

"Bargrave  Abbey.  Belonged  to  the  Pierrpoints  till  last 
year.  When  they  went  broke  they  sold  it — to  an  Ameri- 
can, I  think." 

"Looks  a  big  place." 

"It  is.  I  went  once  with  the  Chief  to  call,  when  I 
was  a  youngster.  It's  moated  and  has  a  ghost,  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing.  It  was  the  ghost,  I  believe,  that  did  for 
the  American. ' '  He  closed  the  window,  and  Ben  remarked 
largely : 

"I  don't  like  Americans,  they  are  so  un-English,  and 
the  more  they  try  to  be  English,  the  more  American  they 
become!" 

"Well,  I  don't  know  many.  This  chap's  son  is  a  good 
sort — he's  at  Oxford — I  believe  he's  a  blue.  I  met  him 
once  at  some  fellow's  rooms,  and  he's  very  decent-looking. 
Give  me  the  baccy,  there's  a  dear  fellow." 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  119 

When  the  incursion  of  young  men  took  place  the  next 
morning,  Ben  watched  the  governess  with  some  interest. 
For  a  poor  girl,  pretty,  but  in  a  dependent  position  which 
was  for  the  present  by  her  host's  express  wish,  suspended, 
there  must  be,  he  knew,  some  excitement  in  being  the 
only  young  woman  in  the  house  with  five  young  men. 

"She'll  make  a  dead  set  for  the  heir,"  Ben  decided, 
"and  she'll  fail,  and  then  she'll  fall  back  on  Keith  or 
Sandy.  Paul  is  too  young.  She  wouldn't  be  a  human 
girl  if  she  didn't  try  to  marry  some  one  of  them." 

But  he  was  wrong.  Miss  Penrose  made  no  dead  set  at 
anyone. 

Sandy  the  Heir  and  his  brother,  after  a  few  civil  words, 
seemed  to  forget  her  existence,  and  young  Paul,  now  a 
slight  youth  with  a  moist  red  mouth,  stared  at  her  in  vain, 
for  she  hardly  noticed  him.  She  was  very  charming  these 
holiday  days,  for  she  was  not  only  delightful  to  behold,  but 
tactful,  pleasant,  and,  in  an  inconspicuous  way,  useful  to 
everybody.  And,  as  has  been  said,  she  seemed  quite  un- 
elated  by  the  amount  of  young  masculinity  that  surrounded 
her. 

Ben  watched  closely,  but  even  he  could  observe  nothing  of 
the  man-hunter  in  her,  so  he  became  a  little  ashamed  of 
himself  and  tried,  by  a  new  friendliness  in  his  manner,  to 
make  up  to  her  for  his  unjust  suspicions. 

And  when  she  told  him  one  day  when  he  found  her  stand- 
ing by  a  window  with  tears  in  her  eyes  that  she  was  lonely, 
he  melted  altogether. 

"I  know — so  am  I,  a  bit.  I  miss  my  old  father  very 
much — he's  in  Germany  looking  up  some  things  for  the 
B.  M. — the  British  Museum,  you  know — that's  why  I'm 
here.  I  say,  Miss  Penrose,  suppose  we  have  a  game  of 
billiards?" 

Sandy  and  Syd,  those  first  days,  were  together  nearly 
all  the  time.  There  were  so  many  things  Sandy  wished 


120  SHARROW 

to  show  his  brother,  things  that  had  thrilled  him  to  the 
marrow  when  he  was  Syd's  age. 

So,  his  arm  laid  across  the  youngster's  shoulders,  he 
led  him  all  over  the  great  house,  upstairs  and  down,  into 
room  after  room,  showing  him  its  wonders,  explaining  to 
him  its  treasures,  telling  him  in  simple  language  incidents 
in  its  history  that  had  years  ago  so  enthralled  him  himself. 

And  Syd,  wide-eyed,  sweet-tempered,  and  perfectly  do- 
cile, allowed  him  to  show,  to  explain,  to  expound. 

But  that  was  all. 

Syd  possessed  within  him  none  of  that  thing  which 
drew  his  brother  and  the  old  lord  so  closely  together. 
His  beautiful  young  face  never  flushed  at  the  stories  his 
brother  told  him,  his  heart  never  changed  its  pleasant, 
languid  beat  for  a  quicker  one. 

Even  the  suits  of  armor  in  the  Great  Hall  failed  to 
rouse  him,  and  finally  Sandy  grew  impatient  of  his  ac- 
quiescent "How  jolly!"  uttered  at  polite  and  dutiful 
intervals. 

"Good  gracious,  Syd,"  Sandy  burst  out,  as  they  stood 
before  the  figure  of  a  man  in  full  armor,  mounted  on  a 
completely  caparisoned  horse,  ' '  don 't  you  feel  it  ?  " 

Syd  looked  up,  his  delicate  mouth  just  stirred  by  a 
smile.  "Don't  I  feel  what,  Sandy,  dear?" 

Ben,  who  had  just  come  in,  listened  attentively,  his  eyes 
fixed  on  the  boy's  face. 

"Why — the — the  wonder  of  it  all — the  beauty — hang  it, 
I  can't  explain  it  to  you,  if  you  don't  feel  it  for  your- 
self!" 

Sandy's  voice  was  still  impatient,  but  there  was  in  it 
an  under-current  of  something  deeper  than  impatience. 

Syd  smiled  at  him.  "I  do  feel  it,  Sandear,"  he  answered, 
using  his  baby  corruption  for  "Sandy,  dear."  "I  think  it 
is  all  awfully  jolly.  But  I  think  I  like  the  Yellow  Draw- 
ing-room best,  the  little  gilt  chairs  are  so  pretty ! ' ' 


CHAPTER  XXI 

ON  the  afternoon  of  the  last  day  but  one  of  the  old  year, 
Sandy  and  Miss  Penrose  sat  together  over  the  fire  in  the 
Small  Hall. 

Syd  had  gone  for  a  ride  with  Keith,  who  had  taken  a 
fancy  to  the  boy,  the  old  lord  was  shut  in  his  room  with 
a  cold,  Ben  was  writing  letters,  and  Mrs.  Sharrow  pre- 
sumably taking  a  nap. 

So  it  had  naturally  followed  that  the  two  young  people 
who  had  nothing  in  particular  to  do  should  find  themselves 
together. 

Sandy  was  smoking  cigarettes,  and  lay  back  very  com- 
fortably in  his  chair,  which,  stern  and  straight-backed  in 
itself,  was  made  habitable  by  the  presence  of  a  deerskin 
pillow,  Mrs.  Sharrow 's  Christmas  gift  to  her  host. 

It  was  pleasant  to  be  there  in  the  firelight  smoking 
and  watching  a  woman  who,  he  had  just  begun  to  realize, 
was  exceptionally  pretty  and  attractive. 

Miss  Penrose  wore  that  day  a  charming  blue  frock  with 
little  frills  of  lace  at  the  throat  and  wrists,  and  in  her 
soft  dark  hair  she  had  woven  a  blue  ribbon. 

The  feeling  of  being  well-dressed  as  well  as  beautiful 
gave  the  girl  a  new  confidence,  although  she  was  never  af- 
flicted by  a  lack  of  that  useful  quality. 

She  felt,  as  Sandy's  eyes  rested  peacefully  on  her  face, 
that  there  was  after  all  no  reason  on  earth  why  she  might 
not  succeed  in  marrying  him.  He  was  not  the  heir,  he  was 
of  no  paramount  importance  in  the  world,  he  was  not 

121 


122  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

rich.  And  she,  penniless  though  she  was,  was  of  gentle 
birth  and  had  undoubted  beauty. 

"What  are  you  thinking  about?"  he  asked  idly. 

"About  you,"  with  placidity. 

"You  flatter  me." 

"Oh,  no — I  was  only  thinking  how  extraordinarily  like 
you  are  to  the  family  portraits.  The  man  in  the  chain- 
armor,  in  the  gallery — he  might  be  you." 

Sandy  burst  out  laughing  and  lit  a  fresh  cigarette. 

"No,  you  are  right.  Your  thoughts  certainly  were  not 
flattering  me !  Isn  't  he  the  most  misbegotten  old  brute  you 
ever  saw  in  your  life?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "His  face  is  not  handsome,  cer- 
tainly, but — he  is  a  fine  big  creature." 

"Thanks!" 

They  were  flirting  now,  idly  and  innocently,  as  every- 
body in  the  world  but  the  born  idiots  or  disgustingly  mal- 
formed has  flirted  at  some  time  or  other. 

And  for  a  rainy  winter  afternoon  in  a  beautiful  room 
lighted  only  by  a  dying  fire,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  a 
better  sport  can  be  found.  , 

"That  ribbon  in  your  hair  is  jolly,"  Sandy  remarked, 
presently.  "It  makes  you  look  like  a  picture " 

' '  Ah,  but  what  picture  ?  Not  one  of  the  Sharrow  dames, 
I  trust?" 

They  laughed  again,  and  Sandy  rang  for  tea. 

"We  might  as  well  have  it,  though  it's  very — the  others 
won't  be  in  for  a  long  time,  and  if  we  wait  for  half  an 
hour  that  young  worm,  Paul,  will  be  joining  us." 

"Yes.    You  don't  like  Paul,  then?" 

"No.  Neither  do  you.  He's — oh,  tea,  please,  John — 
he  gets  on  my  nerves  somehow,  and  his  lisp  makes  me 
want  to  be  sick." 

They  drank  their  tea,  had  the  tray  taken  away, 
and  then  Sandy  persuaded  the  girl  to  smoke  a  cigar- 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  123 

ette.  ' '  You  can  throw  it  into  the  fire  if  anyone  comes, ' '  he 
said. 

Cigarette  smoking  was  nearly  a  crime  for  a  woman  in 
'85. 

And  she  had,  in  spite  of  her  varied  experiences,  never 
before  tried  smoking,  so  it  was  rather  thrilling,  particu- 
larly when  Sandy's  hand,  in  lighting  her  cigarette,  chanced 
to  touch  her  chin  and  lingered  there  a  second. 

In  the  faint  light  he  saw  her  flush. 

A  few  moments  later  they  busied  themselves  with  the 
now  dying  fire,  and  this  time,  as  she  reached  for  the  poker, 
her  hand  touched  his. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Sandy  hastily. 

She  turned  and  smiled  at  him,  drawing  a  trifle  nearer. 

Sandy  kissed  her. 

She  was  a  pleasant  person  to  kiss,  not  only  because 
her  skin  was  smooth  and  cool,  but  because  she  very  ob- 
viously liked  it.  Something  in  the  way  she  pressed  her 
cheek  to  his  stirred  him,  and  he  caught  her  round  the 
shoulders,  turned  her  head  with  his  right  hand,  and  kissed 
her  mouth. 

Five  minutes  later  he  received  a  summons  to  go  to  his 
great-uncle. 

He  found  the  old  man  wrapped  in  a  gray  plaid,  bending 
over  his  fire. 

' '  What  have  you  been  doing,  Sandy  ? "  he  asked,  without 
looking  up. 

"Sitting  in  the  Small  Hall,  sir/' 

"Alone?" 

"No." 

"With  whom,  then?" 

A  little  surprised,  the  young  man  answered,  "With 
Miss  Penrose.  The  others  are  all  out — or  busy.  Frith  is 
writing  letters." 

' '  I  see.    So  you ' ' — Lord  Sharrow  rubbed  his  hands  gently 


124  SHARROW 

together,  and  they  shone  nearly  transparent  against  the 
red  flames,  "so  you  have  been  amusing  yourself  by  mak- 
ing love  to  the  governess." 

Sandy  was  silent  for  a  second,  "I  don't  see  why  you 
should  assume  that,  sir,  because  we  had  tea  together. ' ' 

"Tea  and  toast,  and — kisses." 

Sandy  started,  and  his  hand  flew  to  his  hair.  Was  it 
untidy?  No,  to  his  relief  it  was  perfectly  smooth.  There 
was  a  pause,  and  then  Lord  Sharrow  went  on,  the  gibing 
note  still  in  his  voice : 

' '  She 's  a  pretty  girl — I  should  have  kissed  her  myself— 
a  few  years  ago." 

"I  don't  think,  Great-uncle,  that  you  have  any  right 
to  assume — "  Sandy  began  hotly,  but  the  old  man  inter- 
rupted him. 

' '  Assume,  assume,  who  the  devil 's  assuming  ?  I  saw  you, 
as  it  happens.  Now,  then!  What  have  you  to  say?" 

The  young  man  had  nothing  to  say.  "But — I  don't 
understand,"  he  stammered,  utterly  taken  aback. 

Lord  Sharrow  then  drew  away  from  the  fire,  sat  upright 
in  his  chair,  and  Sandy  saw  that  he  was  shaking  with 
laughter. 

"You  silly  young  idiot!  How  could  I  possibly  see  you? 
Did  you  never  hear  of  bluff?  A  noble  game,  Sandy,  and 
a  most  useful  one.  Well,  so  she  has  got  her  own  way  at 
last,  has  she?" 

Sandy  was  white  with  anger.  "I  can't  very  well  tell 
you  what  I  think  of  your  noble  game,  sir,"  he  said  rapidly, 
"so  I  had  perhaps  better  go — 

"Oh,  yes — go,  and  hasten  back  to  the  maligned  virgin 
and  console  her  for  what  she  doesn't  know,  with  more 
kisses!  Don't  be  a  fool.  And  as  to  kissing  the  girl — kiss 
her  as  much  as  you  like — only,  no  nonsense  about  marry- 
ing her,  mind." 

"Marrying  her!    But  such  an  idea " 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  125 

' '  Never  entered  your  mind.  I  know  that.  It  rarely  does 
enter  the  man 's  mind  until  the  woman  puts  it  there.  Well, 
it  has  come  into  hers.  She  has  fallen  in  love  with  you, 
though  God  knows  you're  no  beauty,  and  she  means  to 
marry  you  if  she  can.  So  I  sent  for  you  to  warn  you. 
That's  all,  my  boy,"  he  added,  suddenly  gentle.  "You 
may  go." 


CHAPTER  XXII 

SANDY  went  down  the  little  corkscrew  staircase  very 
quietly,  placing  his  feet  with  care  on  each  hollowed  oak 
step. 

Instead  of  going  back  to  the  Small  Hall,  he  turned  to 
the  left  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  and.  finding  a  cap  of 
Keith's  on  a  chest,  went  out. 

It  had  been  raining  at  intervals  all  day,  but  for  the 
moment  the  only  moisture  that  fell  was  that  which  dripped 
from  the  eaves  and  from  the  bare  boughs  of  the  trees. 

It  was  only  five  o'clock,  and  in  the  west  a  break  in  the 
clouds  showed  a  faint  glory  of  gold  rapidly  fading  to 
gray.  This  was  the  side  of  the  house  where  the  moat 
had  not  been  drained  and  lined  with  turf,  so  the  door  led 
on  to  a  small  bridge  leading  over  dark  gleaming  water  to 
a  slope  down  which  one  went  toward  the  wild  part  of  the 
park  and  White  Shirley. 

Sandy  took  off  Keith's  cap,  and  stood  for  a  moment  on 
the  bridge;  the  damp  was  grateful  to  him  for  he  was 
aflame  with  anger,  and  something  like  shame. 

The  old  man  was  a  beast,  but — suppose  the  old  man 
were  right? 

He,  Sandy,  had  meant  by  his  half-dozen  kisses  only 
just  that — half  a  dozen  kisses ;  and  even  without  his  great- 
uncle 's  warning  he  might  by  this  time  have  regretted  them, 
for,  after  all,  the  girl  was  in  his  mother's  employ,  and 
thus  deserved  far  more  chivalrous  consideration  than  if  she 
had  been  merely  one  of  his  fellow-guests.  His  great-uncle 

126 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  127 

had  had  no  business  to  say  that  she  wanted  to  marry  him, 
but — suppose  she  did? 

lie  knew  quite  well  as  he  stood  there  on  the  old  nail- 
studded  footbridge  in  the  dusk  that  his  kisses  had  meant 
to  her  far  more  than  hers,  sweet  though  they  were,  had 
meant  to  him. 

Besides — he  flushed  again  as  he  put  his  hand  into  his 
pocket  and  pulled  out  a  bit  of  blue  satin  ribbon.  She  had 
drawn  it  out  of  her  hair  and  given  it  to  him  "as  a  re- 
membrance." 

The  ribbon,  as  he  held  it  in  his  hand,  gave  out  a  faint 
smell  of  something  supposed  to  be  like  new-mown  hay. 
It  was  not  in  the  least  like  new-mown  hay,  but  it  was  very 
sweet,  and  he  remembered  that  as  he  kissed  her  the  same 
scent  had  assailed  him  from  her  hair,  her  skin,  her  frock. 

"He  had  no  right  to  play  me  that  trick,  he's  an  old 
satyr,"  he  reflected,  pressing  the  ribbon  for  a  moment  to 
his  face,  and  then  putting  it  into  his  pocket.  "He  had  no 
right  to  assume  anything  so  absurd,  and  I  will  show  her 
the  ruin  by  moonlight  to-night ! ' ' 

Whistling,  he  went  across  the  bridge,  down  the  silvery 
slope,  and,  turning  sharp  to  his  left,  started  by  a  footpath 
towards  the  village. 

Mr.  Dingle,  the  steward,  and  his  widowed  daughter  who 
lived  with  him,  greeted  their  distinguished  guest  warmly, 
and  he  was  constrained  to  accept  a  glass  of  elderberry  wine 
and  a  large  slice  of  excellent  seed-cake,  the  recipe  for  which 
was  one  of  the  Dingles'  family  secret. 

Dingle,  who  had  grown  to  be  very  fat,  presented,  as  he 
sat  in  his  pleasant  parlor,  on  the  walls  of  which  were 
hung  samplers  worked  by  his  ancestresses,  a  delightful  pic- 
ture. 

Randolph  Caldecott  of  blessed  memory  would  have  re- 
joiced in  him  with  his  honest  red  face  and  his  dignity. 

Sally,  still  pretty,  still  a  flirt,  though  the  mother  of  stal- 


128  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

wart  twins,  to  one  of  whom  Sandy  was  godfather,  wore  a 
large  white  apron  over  her  black  frock,  and  was  as  jolly 
as  chuckling,  as  contented  a  young  widow  as  one  would 
wish  to  see. 

' '  How  I  loved  that  ship  when  I  was  a  youngster, ' '  Sandy 
observed,  munching  cake  and  trying  to  forget  the  taste 
of  the  wine  as  he  manfully  bolted  it,  "and  the  big  pink 
shells.  I  still  believe  they're  the  biggest  shells  in  the 
world,  Dingle!" 

"The  biggest  in  Sharrow,  at  all  events,  sir,"  returned 
Dingle  placidly,  with  the  air  of  a  man  producing  a  smash- 
ing bit  of  confirmation.  "Lord,  Lord,  Mr.  Sandy,  it  does 
seem  a  long  time  since  that  first  day  when  you  came  riding 
along  on  that  black  pony  of  Master  Keith's,  and  told  me 
'is  lordship  wanted  me.  Do  you  remember?  'A  jolly  old 
wigging  you're  going  to  get,  Mr.  Dingle/  you  said,  sir, 
and— I  did!" 

"Poor  Father,  he  still  does,"  Mrs.  Linter  declared,  nip- 
ping delicately  with  a  pointed  lip  at  her  glass  of  wine. 

'Is  lordship's  temper  doesn't  improve  with  age,  sir, 
does  it?" 

"No,  poor  old  man." 

There  was  no  impropriety  in  this  talk,  no  hint  of  dis- 
respect in  the  manner  of  the  steward  and  his  daughter. 
They  were  old-fashioned  folk  who  would  have  gone  to 
the  stake  for  Sharrow  as  an  institution  to  which  they  be- 
longed ;  but  as  they  did  belong  to  it,  and  work  for  it,  they 
felt  a  placid  right  to  criticise  it,  and  this  Sandy  under- 
stood. 

"Mr.  Sandy  well,  sir?"  asked  Dingle  presently. 

"Yes.  Has  a  fine  moustache,  and  is,  as  you  of  course 
know,  engaged.  He  will,  of  course,  be  coming  to  see  you 
soon — he  only  got  here  on  Tuesday." 

"Oh,  yes,  he'll  be  coming.  Always  polite,  Mr.  Sandy, 
always  considerate " 


S  H  A  R  E  0  W  129 

The  old  man's  voice  held  level  on  the  last  word,  as  he 
paused,  and  Mrs.  Linter  waved  a  dimpled  hand  in  affec- 
tionate reproach. 

"Now,  Father,  don't  you  say  it!  You  know  that  Mr. 
Sandy — our  Mr.  Sandy  here — doesn't  like  it.  'E  never 
did." 

Sandy  rose.  "Never  mind,  Dingle,"  he  said,  shaking 
hands  with  his  hostess.  "Sally  bullies  the  life  out  of 
you,  so  you'd  better  obey  her.  But — I  know  what  you 
mean,  and  I  fear  I  rather  like  to  have  you  think  it.  Good- 
by,  Sally;  good-by  Dingle.  I  shall  be  seeing  you  soon  at 
the  house,  no  doubt." 

He  went  out  into  the  now  lamplit  street  of  the  little 
village,  and,  turning  to  his  right,  went  towards  the  inn. 

There  he  would  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone,  call  on  his 
old  friend,  Mrs.  Babbage,  and  get  something  to  take  the 
taste  of  that  confounded  concoction  of  Sally  Linter 's  out  of 
his  mouth. 

Sharrow  village  was  small  and  straggling.  It  con- 
sisted of  two  dozen  or  so  houses  set  down  on  the  edge  of 
an  irregularly  shaped  green  on  one  side  of  which  gleamed 
a  horsepond. 

The  cottages  were  for  the  most  part  thatched,  and  many 
of  them  were  very  old,  and  seemed  to  have  grown  into 
the  earth  from  which  the  whitewashed  stones  had  been 
torn. 

The  inn  was  opposite  the  horsepond,  and  was  a  fairly 
large  house,  one  of  the  oldest  in  the  place. 

Over  its  door,  which  led  into  a  cobbled  courtyard,  swung 
an  ancient  sign,  bearing  its  name  in  black  letters  on  a 
white  ground:  "The  Sheepshearers '  Arms." 

Sandy  paused  at  the  door,  and  looked  about  him. 

There  was  the  blacksmith's  shop  where  once  he  and 
his  first  horse,  Rhoderick  Dhu,  had  taken  refuge,  on  his 
way  home  from  a  hunt,  from  a  terrific  thunderstorm.  He 


130  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

could  still  hear  the  strange  reverberation  of  the  thunder 
among  the  iron  things  in  the  shed. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  road  was  Mrs.  Gidding's  sweet- 
shop. Oh,  vanished  bulls '-eyes,  and  lost  Edinburgh  rock! 

As  he  stood  there,  something  white  came  scurrying  down 
the  road,  and,  with  a  final  elastic  bounce,  lay  sprawling  at 
his  feet — a  panting,  gasping  something  too  fat  underneath 
(its  underneath  was  now  uppermost),  a  something  de- 
lighted, servile,  triumphant. 

"Winker,  you  scoundrel,  how  did  you  get  out?"  He 
bent  and  patted  the  dog  whom  he  loved.  "I  left  you  in 
the  Small  Hall  sleeping  the  sleep  of  satisfied  gluttony — 
did  she  let  you  out,  eh?  Did  pretty  Maggie  open  the 
door  for  you?" 

He  paused  a  moment,  for  he  had  never  before  used  the 
girl's  name,  and  then  went  under  the  whitewashed  arch- 
way, and  into  the  inn. 

They  were  glad  to  see  him.  Mrs.  Babbage  herself 
bustled  forward  to  meet  him,  bade  him  mind  not  to  bump 
his  head  in  the  doorway ;  Lord,  but  he  'ad  grown ! 

And  then,  as  he  stood  still  shaking  hands  with  the 
three  or  four  villagers  who  were  wetting  their  various 
whistles,  as  one  of  them  quite  superfluously  explained,  the 
door  leading  from  the  bar  into  the  hostess's  private  parlor 
opened  suddenly,  and  Sandy  forgot  to  give  his  hand  to  old 
Peter  Bustard,  Farmer  Linter's  shepherd,  and  stood  star- 
ing stupidly. 

"Oh,  Sandy,  don't  you  know  me?" 

Viola  Wymondham  came  forward  into  the  glare  of  the 
oil  lamps,  her  father's  parishoners  making  respectful  way 
for  her,  and  held  out  her  hand. 

"Viola!" 

"Yes.  And  you  didn't  know  me.  Now  isn't  that  un- 
kind, Mrs.  Babbage?  Peter  Bustard  always  knows  me, 
don't  you,  Peter?" 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  131 

Peter,  who  was  well  over  eighty,  was  a  little  senile,  but 
he  burst  into  an  understanding  roar  of  delight  at  this 
most  excellent  joke. 

Five  minutes  later,  Sandy,  having  explained  to  Mrs. 
Babbage  that  he  must  walk  home  with  Miss  Viola  but 
would  call  again  very  soon,  found  himself  in  the  dusky 
village  street  with  the  woman  he  loved. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

NEVER  for  one  instant  did  Sandy  ask  himself  what  it 
was  that  had  happened  to  him.  From  the  minute  when 
the  door  opened  and  she  stood  on  the  threshold,  a  little 
cloud  of  tobacco  smoke  floating  between  her  and  him,  he 
knew  that  he  loved  her. 

There  she  stood,  his  wife.  It  was  rather  overwhelming 
but  beautifully  simple. 

She  wore  dark  furs  out  of  which  her  little  fair  head 
rose  like  a  flower,  and  she  had  a  buoyant  walk  that  not 
even  the  abominable  greasy  cobblestones  of  the  village 
could  discourage. 

She  had  a  rather  serious  little  manner,  a  sort  of  aloof- 
ness that  to  him  was  perfection,  and  she  told  him  her 
simple  news  in  a  gentle  voice  that  ravished  him. 

Yes,  Mary  was  well,  and  her  father,  too,  bar  his  occa- 
sional attacks  of  bronchitis.  Yes,  she  was  glad  to  be  back 
at  home ;  yes,  she  felt  the  cold  a  little.  Oh,  dear,  no !  she 
was  no  longer  delicate.  That  is  to  say,  not  very. 

And  Sandy  literally  drank  her  words. 

The  air  was  by  this  time  soaked  with  moisture,  though 
no  rain  fell,  and  the  earth  gave  out  a  cool,  spicy  smell 
that  reminded  them  that  spring  was  somewhere  in  the 
future. 

"Look,  Sandy,  all  the  trees  are  covered  with  drops  of 
water — how  pretty  it  is!" 

They  paused  where  the  light  flowed  into  the  narrow 
channel  of  the  village  street,  and  looked  at  the  branches 

132 


S  HARROW  133 

of  the  trees  that  hung  over  the  road  from  the  doctor's 
garden. 

The  lamp  over  the  surgery  door  cast  a  red  halo  around 
the  girl's  upturned  face.  Sandy  looked  at  her,  not  at 
the  trees. 

"You  are  sure  you  quite  understand  about  my  not  call- 
ing ?  "  he  asked  presently,  although  she  had  already  assured 
him  that  no  one  at  the  Vicarage  had  taken  offense  at  his 
note. 

' '  Oh,  yes,  Sandy !  We  were  sorry,  but  of  course  we  knew 
that  you  couldn't  do  anything  else.  How — how  wicked  of 
him,  isn't  it,  still  so  to  hate  poor  grandmamma?  Perfectly 
absurd ! ' ' 

They  had  turned  into  a  path  leading  across  the  park 
towards  the  Vicarage,  and  under  the  dark  trees  her  laugh 
echoed  gayly. 

"If  only  you  could  have  seen  grandmamma,  Sandy. 
Why,  she  had  quite  a  long  beard  and  was  so  fat  she 
couldn't  move!" 

"She  hadn't  a  beard  when  she  was  young,  Vi,"  he 
returned  gravely,  "and  I  can  quite  understand  him." 

She  stood  still,  her  little  figure  close  to  him,  her  face 
a  mere  luminous  blot  in  the  darkness. 

"You  can  understand?  Why,  Sandy,  to  hate  someone 
for  fifty  years  because  she  wouldn't  marry  you?" 

Still  he  was  grave.  "Yes,  I  can.  Of  course,  it  would 
depend — on  the  person." 

There  was  a  long  pause,  then  he  added,  jerkily,  "You 
see,  Viola,  you  don't  quite  understand.  He — he  loved 
her." 

He  had  never  before  in  his  life  used  the  wonderful 
word  in  any  connection  with  himself,  and  its  use,  even 
in  this  circuitous  way,  made  his  breath  catch  in  his 
throat. 

"He — loved  her,"  he  repeated,  as  they  walked  slowly 


134  S  H  A  R  E  0  W 

on,  and,  downright  being  though  he  was,  he  was  epicure 
enough  to  enjoy  the  subtlety  of  such  love-making. 

They  hardly  spoke  again,  for  she,  too,  felt  the  magic  of 
the  thing,  though  she  did  not  recognize  it. 

They  crossed  the  bit  of  woodland,  and  turned  down  the 
long  path  which,  because  it  was  a  right  of  way,  and  led 
to  the  hated  Vicarage,  was  hidden  even  from  the  upper- 
most windows  of  the  house  by  a  huge  hedge. 

Now  it  was  quite  dark,  and  Sandy  longed  with  all  his 
might  to  offer  Viola  his  arm.  But  he  did  not  do  it,  for 
he  did  not  quite  dare.  They  had  parted  as  children — what 
if  she  should  feel  it  to  be  a  kind  of  travesty  of  grown-up- 
ness,  and  laugh  ? 

Once  he  stumbled  and  cannoned  sideways  against  her. 
He  never  forgot  that. 

When  the  silence  was  at  last  broken,  it  was,  of  course, 
by  her. 

"I  do  wish  he  wasn't  so  silly;  it  is  a  shame  that  we 
can't  see  you,  now  we  are  here.  There  are  so  many 
things  I  want  to  ask  you,  and  to  tell  you. ' ' 

"Are  there,  Vi?" 

His  voice  was  so  beautifully  gentle  that  she  started, 
and  then  said,  "You  have  changed,  Sandy!" 

"Yes,  I  was  a  child  then.  Now  I  am  a  man.  I  am 
twenty-three. ' ' 

"And  I'm  nineteen." 

"I  know.  Mary  is  twenty-two.  Oh,  I  have  not  for- 
gotten. To-morrow  we  are  having  a  party — lots  of  people 
are  coming.  My  great-uncle  is  quite  excited  about  it.  We 
are  going  to  dance,  and  play  old-fashioned  games.  If 
only " 

"Oh,  snapdragon?  I  do  love  snapdragon,  Sandy.  I 
think  of  all  the  heavenly  things,  it's  snapdragon.  Oh, 
dear!" 

Sandy  hated  his  great-uncle  so  at  that  moment  that  she 


SHARROW  135 

heard  his  teeth  gritting  against  each  other,  and  hastened 
to  console  him. 

"Don't  be  angry,  Sandy — I  am  absurd  and  childish  to 
mind  about  a  little  English  country  party.  Why,  I've 
been  to  court  V 

"You  haven't!" 

"I  have,  and  not  only  here  but  at  Rome.  And  I  have 
had,"  she  added  importantly,  "two  proposals." 

Sandy  did  not  answer. 

They  had  reached  the  end  of  the  path  and  were  walking 
along  the  South  Avenue  towards  the  Vicarage  gate. 

"One  of  them  was  a  prince,  too!" 

"Pooh!  An  Italian  prince,"  he  retorted,  very  sore  and 
thirsting  for  that  alien  noble's  blood. 

The  Vicarage  was  before  them  now,  a  long,  low,  com- 
fortable old  house,  and  its  windows  on  the  two  lower 
stories  were  glowing  with  the  reddish  lamplight  that  is  so 
much  cosier  than  electric  lights  of  any  kind. 

"I  suppose  I  may  go  to  the  door?" 

' '  Of  course  you  must.  It  would  be  most  rude  to  let  me 
go  up  that  great  path  all  by  myself,"  she  laughed. 

They  stood  under  the  porch,  saying  good-by,  for  several 
minutes. 

"Let  me  call  Mary  out  here,  just  to  say  how  do  you 
do.  She'd  love  to  see  you." 

"No,  no,  it  wouldn't  be  fair.  I've  given  him  my  word, 
but — I  wish  I  had  him  here  to  tell  him  what  I  think. ' ' 

As  he  spoke,  the  door  opened  suddenly  and  the  Vicar 
appeared,  his  finger  to  his  lips. 

"Hush — I  thought  I  heard  talking.  Sandy,  your  uncle 
is  here — how  d'you  do,  my  boy?  glad  to  see  you.  He  has 
had  an  attack  of  some  kind — I  heard  him  groaning  as  I 
came  home — he  was  in  the  copse  behind  the  church,  and  I 
had  him  brought  in  here.  He  is  better  now,  but  has  gone 
to  sleep." 


136  S  H  A  B  R  0  W 

"My  great-uncle  here!  Good  heavens,  sir!  We  had  bet- 
ter get  him  home  before  he  comes  to  himself. ' ' 

"No,  that's  quite  all  right.  He — he  is  too — too  well- 
bred  to  say  a  word  under  the  circumstances.  I  think  he 
knew,  or  very  nearly  knew,  when  he  came  out  of  his  faint, 
where  he  was — come  in,  children,  come  in;  it  is  very  damp 
— and  he  asked  for  you.  I  was  just  going  to  send  William 
up  to  the  house  for  you." 

Sandy  remembered  the  old  hall  with  its  antlered  hat-rack, 
its  ochre-colored  shiny  paper  in  imitation  marble,  its  shal- 
low staircase  with  the  spindly  handrail. 

The  old  engraving  of  Nelson  at  Trafalgar  still  hung 
beside  the  gilt  mirror  opposite  the  hatrack,  and,  through 
the  open  door  on  the  left,  the  light  of  the  Vicar's  fire 
danced,  as  of  yore,  on  the  bare  oak  floor. 

"He's  in  my  study — ah,  here's  Mary.  How  is  he,  my 
dear?" 

Mary,  whose  sleeves  were  rolled  up  to  her  elbows,  and 
who  held  a  large  handkerchief,  folded  bandage-wise,  and 
smelling  of  vinegar,  nodded  to  Sandy. 

"How  do  you  do?"  she  said,  civilly.  "Glad  to  see  you 
again.  He's  still  asleep,  Father,  but  I  think  he  will  wake 
soon;  he's  restless." 

She  was  tall,  very  tall  beside  her  sister,  and  was,  Sandy 
saw  at  a  glance,  well-developed  and  strong  looking.  As  in 
her  childhood,  her  dark  eyebrows  nearly  met  over  her 
straight,  well-cut  nose,  and  her  cheek-bones  were  too  high. 

She  had  a  clear,  smooth,  rather  dark  skin  with  a  faint 
color  in  the  cheeks,  and  her  large  mouth  was  red. 

A  plain  young  woman,  but  very  nice  looking.  That  is 
what  nine  people  out  of  ten  said  of  Mary  Wymondham,  and 
she  knew  it  and  did  not  care  a  rush. 

Viola  took  off  her  hat,  her  furs,  and  her  coat.  Sandy 
watched  her. 

They  had  gone  into  the  dining-room,  which  was  opposite 


S  H  A  E  E  O  W  137 

the  study,  so  as  to  be  near  at  hand  when  Lord  Sharrow 
should  waken. 

"The  house  looks  pretty  much  the  same,"  young  Shar- 
row remarked.  "How  well  I  remember  it  all!  Do  you 
remember  the  day  you  fainted,  and  I  thought  you  were 
dead?  I  do." 

"I  don't.    I  often  fainted,  you  know." 

"But  you  don't  now?"  At  the  nervous  anxiety  in  his 
voice,  she  turned  away  from  the  fire  and  looked  at  him. 

"Oh,  Sandy,  how  funny  you  look  when  you're  serious! 
Dear  me,  how  bushy  your  eyebrows  are!" 

"Are  they?  Did  Mary  call  us?  Hush!  No— it's  all 
right.  I  say,  Vi,  perhaps  he'll  have  to  make  up  with  your 
father  now." 

Mary  came  to  the  door. 

"Sandy,"  she  said  deliberately,  a  little  louder  than 
would  have  been  necessary,  but  for  the  old  listener  in  the 
other  room,  "I  am  so  glad  you  have  come.  Lord  Sharrow 
is  better  now,  and  wishes  to  see  you." 

The  old  man  lay  on  the  Vicar's  worn  leather  sofa,  a 
green  and  red  worsted  pillow  under  his  head.  He  was 
pale,  but  looked  otherwise  quite  all  right. 

"Ah,  you've  got  here,"  he  observed,  as  Sandy  came 
in,  "that's  right.  I  had  a  bad  turn  in  the  wood,  and — and 
— Mr.  Wymondham  had  me  brought  in  here.  It  was  very 
kind  of  him.  Will  you  ask  him  to  come  to  me,  as  I  am  still 
too  weak  to  go  to  him?  I  wish  to  thank  him  for  his  kind- 
ness. ' ' 

Sandy  was  deeply  sorry  for  the  unforgiving  old  man, 
as  he  saw  his  struggle  to  be  courteous ;  there  was  something 
fine  in  the  triumph  of  breeding  over  enmity. 

"I  am  glad  you're  all  right  again,  sir,"  the  young  man 
said,  gently.  "Shall  I  send  for  a  carriage?" 

"No,  thanks.  Mr.  Wymondham" — the  utterance  of  the 
name  itself  seemed  half  to  choke  old  Sharrow,  but  he  said 


138  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

it  with  peculiar  clearness — "has  offered  to  send  me  in  his 
pony-carriage.  Just  ask  him  kindly  to  come  to  me,  will 
you?" 

The  Vicar,  himself  an  old,  white-haired  man  with  a 
weary  stoop  to  his  thin  shoulders,  came  at  the  bidding  of 
his  mother's  old  lover,  and  stood  mildly  before  him. 

"I  wish,  Mr.  "Wymondham,"  Lord  Sharrow  said,  sitting 
up,  and  arranging  his  scant,  unreverend  gray  hairs  with  one 
hand,  while  he  leaned  on  the  head  of  the  sofa  with  his 
other  arm,  "to  give  you  my  sincere  thanks  for  your  kind- 
ness in  bringing  me  to  your  house  and  caring  for  me." 

"My  dear  Lord  Sharrow,  it  was  nothing — nothing,"  be- 
gan the  Vicar  nervously. 

"You  would  have  done  as  much  for  anyone — no  matter 
whom,"  interrupted  the  older  old  man,  just  the  shadow 
of  a  sneer  marring  the  courtesy  of  his  manner.  ' '  I  under- 
stand that,  of  course,  Mr.  Wymondham,  but,"  and  his  voice 
changed,  as  his  face  cleared  again,  to  one  of  greater  gentle- 
ness than  Sandy  could  remember  in  him,  "you  have  been 
more  than  Christian-like,  you  have  been  truly  kind.  Just 
as  I  regained — my  wits — I  heard  you  speak  to  your 
daughter." 

There  was  a  pause  during  which  Viola  drew  nearer  to 
her  father,  who  cast  a  look  of  almost  agonized  appeal  to 
Sandy. 

Then  Lord  Sharrow  struggled  to  his  feet  and,  standing 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life  in  the  house  of  the  man 
he  had  chosen  to  consider  his  enemy,  he  faced  that  man 
and  went  on  speaking. 

"You  said  to  your  daughter,  'Oh,  Mary,  my  dear,  the 
poor  old  man,  the  poor  old  man ! '  ' 

After  a  pause  he  added,  "And  you  were  right.  I  have 
hated  your  mother — a  most  beautiful  woman,  sir,  a  most 
beautiful  woman — for  over  sixty  years.  I  never  forgave 
even  you  for  the  wrong  she  did  me  long  before  your  birth. 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  139 

But — I  am  just  that:  a  poor  old  man.  And,  James  Wy- 
mondham," he  held  out  his  veined  and  knotted  hand, 
' '  I  now  ask  you — will  you  and — your  mother,  forgive  me  ? ' ' 

The  Vicar  could  not  speak.  Sandy  glanced  at  Viola,  and 
then,  because  her  eyes,  too,  were  full  of  tears,  at  the 
ceiling. 

The  two  old  men  shook  hands. 

Sandy  looked  on,  his  thick,  dusty-looking  eyelashes  wet, 
There  was  something  very  pathetic  in  this  late  reconcilia- 
tion. That  it  was  too  late  for  any  practical  good  to  come 
of  it,  made  it,  somehow,  more  poignant. 

He  remembered  vaguely  what  he  had  heard  of  James 
Wymondham's  early  struggles,  the  poverty  that  was  his 
only  heritage  from  his  father,  who  died  in  his  childhood; 
he  knew  that  poor  Cyrilla  had  on  one  occasion  made  a 
frantic  appeal  to  her  old  lover,  only  to  be  repulsed  by 
silence. 

And  now  the  boy  whom  Lord  Sharrow  might  have 
helped  was  an  old  man  himself. 

After  a  long  pause  during  which  the  two  hands  were 
firmly  clasped,  Lord  Sharrow  said,  with  an  air  of  relief, 
"We  will  go  now,  Sandy."  They  went,  almost  in  silence. 

As  they  drove  homewards  in  the  ancient  pony  carriage 
in  which  Cyrilla  Wymondham  had  driven  her  little  son 
Jimmie  half  a  century  before,  the  old  man  gave  a  sudden 
chuckle. 

"A  strange  scene  it  must  have  been,  eh,  Sandy?" 

"What  scene,  sir?" 

"Why,  James  Wymondham  and  me  solemnly  shaking 
hands !  She  would  have  laughed,  you  know.  She  did  laugh 
at  most  things." 

Sandy  turned  and  looked  at  him  in  the  moonlight. 

"Surely,  sir,  you  were  not — not  just " 

"Shamming,  you  want  to  say.  Well,  why  don't  you 
say  it?"  snapped  his  great-uncle.  "No.  I  am  still,  thank 


140  SHAREOW 

God,  capable  of  seeing  the  funny  side  of  a  thing,  but — I 
was  not  shamming,  Sandy. ' ' 

They  drove  on  in  silence. 

Suddenly  Lord  Sharrow  asked  sharply:  "What  is  that 
you  are  whistling?" 

Sandy  hesitated.  "I — I  don't  know  what  it  is,  sir;  I 
heard  a  boy  whistle  it  one  morning,  years  ago " 

As  he  spoke,  he  realized  that  the  air  had  not  come  into 
his  memory  for  a  long  time.  It  was  seeing  Viola  that  had 
recalled  it. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THEIR  arrival  at  home  was  attended  with  some  excite- 
ment, for  Lord  Sharrow  had  been  suffering  from  a  cold 
that  day,  and  had  declared  himself  too  unwell  to  leave  his 
own  rooms. 

"And  then,  sir,"  his  valet  told  Sandy,  when  the  invalid 
had  been  established  by  his  fire,  "when  I  went  in  with 
'is  tea,  'e  'ad  gone  out.  I  was  extremely  alarmed,  sir,  but 
I  daren  't  do  anything,  for  if  I  'ad  gone  out  after  'im,  'e  'd 
'ave" — poor  Waters  broke  off,  for  his  thoughts  hardly 
bore  expression,  even  to  an  old  friend  like  Sandy. 

"I  know,  Waters,  I  know.  Well — he  seems  to  have  had 
some  kind  of  a  fit — very  slight,  luckily — and  just  by  chance, 
Mr.  Wymondham  found  him,  in  the  coppice  near  the 
church,  and  had  him  carried  to  the  Vicarage." 

"My  Gawd,  sir!" 

Waters  had  been  his  lordship's  valet  for  over  twenty 
years,  and  of  course  knew  of  the  enmity  between  The 
House  and  the  Vicarage. 

Mrs.  Puddifant,  nee  Babbage,  who  had  been  housekeeper 
for  an  even  longer  time,  took  the  liberty  of  coming  to 
Sandy's  room  for  fountain-head  information. 

Then  he  had  to  explain  to  his  mother,  who  was  all  for 
sending  for  leeches  to  apply  to  the  back  of  the  august  in- 
valid's neck;  to  Sandy  the  Heir,  who  had  a  right  to  know, 
and  whose  handsome  young  face  wore,  during  the  recital, 
an  expression  that  would  not  have  been  amiss  if  his  sov- 
ereign had  been  in  question,  so  polite  was  he  and  so  im- 

141 


142  SHARROW 

personal  were  his  feelings ;  Keith,  too,  asked  a  few  questions, 
and  even  red-lipped  Paul,  whose  interest  took  the  form  of 
scarcely  veiled  regret  for  the  heir's  sake,  that,  as  he  said, 
"nothing  really  vital  had  happened." 

"Nothing  really  mortal,  you  mean,"  retorted  Sandy,  in 
the  frank  disgust  Paul  so  often  inspired  in  him.  "For  a 
budding  parson,  Paul,  you  really  are  rather  too  much  of  a 
rotter." 

"Not  at  all,"  Paul  retorted  with  his  musical  laugh. 
"Lots  of  parsons  are  rotters!" 

Then  little  Syd  came  and  curled  up  on  the  arm  of  his 
brother's  chair,  as  Sandy  finally  sat  down  in  the  Small 
Hall  to  rest. 

"Poor  Great-uncle,"  the  boy  said,  his  arm  around 
Sandy's  neck,  "how  dreadful  to  be  ill  in  the  wood,  all 
alone!  Has  he  made  up  with  Mr.  Wymondham,  Sandy?" 

"You  young  magpie!  What  do  you  know  about  Mr. 
Wymondham  ? ' ' 

"All,"  declared  Syd,  emphatically.  "Miss  Penrose  told 
me.  She  says  he'll  have  to  invite  the  Pretty  Girl  to  the 
party  now,  too." 

Sandy  started.  Miss  Penrose,  whose  existence  he  had 
utterly  forgotten,  came  with  a  shock  to  his  memory.  Could 
it  be  only  four  hours  since  he  had  sat  in  that  very  chair 
and — kissed  her? 

It  seemed  years  ago — or,  more  exactly,  it  seemed  as  if 
another  young  man  had  sat  there,  a  young  man  with 
whom  this  present  Sandy  had  nothing  whatever  to  do. 
But — the  young  woman  whom  that  other  young  man  had 
kissed — was  she  right.?  Would  Lord  Sharrow  now  invite 
the  Vicarage  people  to  the  dance  the  next  night?  In  that 
case  Sandy  would  show  her  the  things  he  loved — this  very 
room,  the  picture  gallery,  the  library — no,  on  second 
thoughts  he  would  not  bring  her  here,  to  the  Small  Hall; 
it  would  not  be 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  143 

"Sandear,  do  you  like  Miss  Penrose?" 

The  boy's  voice  startled  the  dreaming  man. 

"Miss  Penrose?  Yes,  yes,  of  course,  Syd.  She  is  very 
nice.  Why?" 

"Because  Paul  told  Ben  that  she  is  a  wise  little  wench. 
I  don't  like  the  word  wench;  it  sounds  like  a  kitchen- 
maid." 

"By  the  way,  Syd  (never  mind  what  Paul  says,  he  never 
matters),  where  is  old  Ben?  I  want  to  see  him." 

"He's  in  your  room.  He  told  me  to  tell  you  that  you 
would  find  him  there,  and  I  forgot.  I'm  so  sorry,  San- 
dear.  ' ' 

Sandy  rose.  "It  doesn't  matter,  Syddikin.  I  must  go 
and  talk  with  him  now." 

Ben  was  smoking  and  reading  Loftie's  "London."  The 
crimson  curtains  were  drawn ;  the  Tower  Room  looked  very 
cozy. 

"Hallo,  Ben!" 

' '  Hallo,  Sandy !  I  thought  I  'd  best  get  out  of  the  way 
when  Miss  Penrose  told  me  you  had  driven  up  in  state  in  a 
pony-carriage — was  she  right  in  saying  it  was  the 
Vicar's?" 

' '  Yes.  But  damn  Miss  Penrose ;  she  seems  to  know  every- 
thing. How  on  earth  did  she  come  to  recognize  that  pony- 
cart?" 

"Better  ask  her,"  returned  Ben  placidly,  taking  off 
his  disfiguring  spectacles  and  blinking  at  his  friend. 

Sandy  stuffed  a  pipe  with  tobacco,  and  set  it  alight. 
Then,  leaning  forward  and  staring  into  the  fire,  he  -said : 

"Ben,  old  boy — something  to  tell  you." 

"Fire  away — Romeo." 

Even  in  the  solemnity  of  the  moment  Sandy  burst  out 
laughing.  "Yes,  don't  I  look  a  Romeo!  But  why  do  you 
call  me  that. ' ' 

"Because — you  come  from  the  Vicarage,  and  because — 


144  SHAREOW 

oh,  well,  I  don't  know  why,  but — it's  Viola  Wymondham, 
Sandy?" 

There  was  a  pause,  and  then  Sandy  said,  softly,  "Yes, 
Ben,  it's  Viola  Wymondham." 

They  had  been  friends  for  so  many  years  that  Sandy 
felt  not  the  least  awkwardness  in  making  his  avowal. 

"Where  did  you  see  her?" 

' '  Met  her  at  the  '  Sheepshearers ', '  and  walked  home  with 
her.  Ben,  she's — well,  you  must  see  her.  I  can't  ex- 
plain." 

His  face  was,  in  the  firelight,  almost  beautiful  as  he 
spoke.  Ben  watched  him  with  a  look  in  his  eyes  that  would 
not  have  been  amiss  in  those  of  a  devoted  mother. 

"The  Old  Chief  and  her  father  shook  hands,"  Sandy 
went  on,  presently,  less  momentously  and  puffing  hard  at 
his  pipe,  which,  to  tell  the  truth,  was  a  little  rank.  ' '  It  was 
a  rather  fine  sight :  the  Old  Chief  very  shaky  and  not 
nearly  so  purple  as  usual,  begging  the  other  old  boy's 
pardon." 

"By  Jove!" 

"Yes.  He's  an  awful  old  scoundrel,  of  course,  but  his 
manners  are  wonderful — when  he  wants  them  to  be.  Mary 
and  Viola  and  I  looked  on  as  if  it  had  been,  well — Irving. 
Viola's  eyes  were  all  wet.  It  was  very  affecting." 

Ben  nodded.  "Must  have  been,  Sandy — I'm  glad,  for 
you." 

' '  Yes,  I  knew  you  'd  be.    Oh,  Ben ! ' ' 

There  was  long  pause.  Then  suddenly  Sandy  sprang 
up. 

"Good  heavens,  man!  I  must  dress.  Why  didn't  you 
remind  me?" 

Ben,  who  was  dressed,  and  whose  very  tight-fitting 
clothes  betrayed  the  fact  that  he  had  grown  since  their 
young  days,  sat  on,  smoking,  for  a  few  minutes  and  then 


SHARROW  145 

opened  a  window  and  let  the  cold  wind  blow  over  him,  to 
get  rid  of  the  smell  of  tobacco. 

After  which  he  went  down  the  long  winding  stairs  and 
gave  a  bang  on  Sandy's  bedroom  door. 

There  was  no  answer,  and,  when  he  had  waited  a  moment, 
he  went  in.  The  room  was  empty,  and,  judging  by  its 
aspect  of  having  been  torn  to  bits  by  a  tornado,  Ben  de- 
cided that  its  owner  had  dressed  in  a  hurry. 

Sandy,  indeed,  had  been  summoned  to  Lord  Sharrow. 

''Sandy,"  the  old  man  snapped,  "tell  Sandy  to  send 
cards  to  the  Vicarage  for  to-morrow  night,  and  to  write  a 
personal  note  saying  that  he  and  I  shall  be  much  disap- 
pointed if  Mr.  Wymondham  and  his  daughters  do  not 
come. ' ' 

"Yes,  sir." 

' '  This  is  the  correct  thing  to  do,  you  understand. ' ' 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Are  you  a  parrot  that  you  can  say  only  one  phrase?" 
Lord  Sharrow 's  voice  was  positively  malevolent. 

"No,  sir.  I  can  say  that,  too.  I  am  an  accomplished 
bird." 

"Hold  your  tongue.  Sandy,  I  wish  you  might  write  the 
note  to  bid  those  charming  young  things  to  my  house,  but 
— it's  no  good.  Sandy  is  my  heir,  and  you — you  are  not 
of  the  slightest  importance." 

' '  Never  mind  that,  Great-uncle. ' '  The  young  man  spoke 
almost  sweetly  in  his  understanding  of  the  old  man's  jest. 
"I  am  of  importance  to  some  people — to  Syd,  and  to  you, 
and  to  Ben,  and — perhaps,  someday,  I  shall  be  to — some- 
body else." 

With  one  of  its  disconcertingly  sudden  changes,  Lord 
Sharrow 's  face  was  again  lowering  and  vindictive. 

' '  Remember — make  love  to  her  as  much  as  you  like,  but — 
and  your  allowance  depends  entirely  on  my  will;  it  is  not 


146  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

yet  settled  on  you.  And — one  word  of  marriage  to  that 
woman,  and " 

Sandy,  to  his  surprise,  interrupted  him  by  a  peal  of 
laughter. 

"You  needn't  worry  about  that,  sir!  I  have  no  more 
idea  of  marrying  Miss  Penrose  than — than  you  have." 

"Oh,  you  haven't?  Very  well,"  mumbled  his  great- 
uncle,  only  half  mollified.  "Be  very  careful,  though.  She 
is  far  cleverer  than  you,  far  cleverer.  Perhaps  you 
wouldn  't  mind  giving  me  your  word  of  honor  that  you  will 
never  marry  her?" 

"Certainly,  sir.  I  give  you  my  word  of  honor  never  to 
marry  Miss  Penrose." 

Then  he  went  down  stairs,  his  heart  as  a  bird  in  his 
breast. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THERE  were  so  many  young  men  at  Sharrow  that  some  of 
them  of  necessity  played  the  part  of  stage-chorus  to  our 
two  principals — the  two  Sandys. 

And,  if  the  history  of  Sandy  the  Heir  were  being  writ- 
ten, our  Sandy,  he  of  no  importance,  would,  of  course, 
fade  into  the  dullness  of  outline  shown  in  this  narrative  by 
the  heir. 

Maggie  Penrose,  in  whose  breast  sang  no  bird  that  night, 
talked  but  little  during  the  late  dinner.  She  watched, 
instead,  the  faces  around  the  table,  and,  as  she  expressed 
it  to  herself,  wondered. 

She  wondered,  because  she  had  a  keen  imagination — 
the  keenest,  bar  Ben  Frith 's,  in  the  party — what  each 
young  man  was  thinking  as  he  took  unto  himself  the  con- 
ventional amount  of  soup,  fish,  entree  and  joint. 

Sandy  the  Heir  looked  quite  as  usual.  He  was  sorry 
the  old  man  had  been  seedy,  but  was  too  honest  and  too 
decent  to  give  a  thought  to  might-have-beens.  Moreover, 
he  had  plenty  of  money  and  no  debts. 

Keith,  no  doubt  vivid  enough  to  himself,  presented,  be- 
cause deeply  bored  by  everyone  in  the  house,  and  inter- 
ested only  in  the  prospects  of  hunting,  a  very  shadow}7 
aspect  to  the  girl.  He  hardly  seemed  real. 

Little  Ben  Frith  she  respected,  but  she  feared  him,  as 
well.  He  saw,  she  knew,  almost  as  much  as  herself. 

Mrs.  Sharrow,  the  rouge  carefully  concealing  her  ugly 
stain,  saw  only  Syd,  and  him  mentally,  for  he  was  in  bed. 

147 


148  SHARROW 

Remained  only  our  Sandy,  who  was  Maggie  Penrose's 
Sandy,  too,  and  something  had  happened  to  him,  she  knew. 
Never  before  had  his  strange  little  eyes  held  quite  that 
look,  nor  his  mouth  worn  quite  that  expression. 

On  the  possibility  that  Sandy  was  still  deeply  affected 
by  his  great-uncle's  indisposition,  the  shrewd  girl  wasted 
not  a  thought.  She  was  too  clever  for  that.  But,  because 
she  was  a  woman,  she  was  not  too  clever  to  make  the  mis- 
take of,  if  not  decidedly  believing,  at  least  hoping  that  she 
went  for  something  in  his  change  of  aspect. 

She  was  not  young  enough  or  innocent  enough  to  think 
that  her  battle  was  won  because  he  had  kissed  her,  but  her 
experience  told  her  that  he  was  not  less  inflammable,  in 
spite  of  his  rugged  face,  than  other  young  men  of  his  age. 
And,  gazing  at  him  as  he  ate  his  fish  with  such  a  splendid 
disregard  of  possible  bones  that  only  the  theory  of  guardian 
angels  could  explain  his  not  choking  to  death,  she  re- 
membered that  he  had  agreed  to  take  her  to  see  the 
ruin  by  moonlight  that  night,  and  the  prospect  held  com- 
fort. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  she  was  really  in  love 
with  him.  She  was  an  adventuress  in  that  she  had  only 
her  wits  to  live  by,  and  in  that  she  had  always  intended 
to  marry  for  position ;  to  exchange  her  youth,  her  beauty, 
and  her  charm,  for  a  fixed  place  in  the  world. 

But  in  a  measure  she  deserved  respect,  because,  being  in 
the  house  with  Sandy  the  Heir  and  Keith,  who  had  to  have 
a  very  decent  fortune  left  him  by  an  uncle  of  his  mother 's, 
she  made  not  the  slightest  attempt  to  attract  the  attention 
of  these  two  young  men,  but  gave  herself  up  entirely  to  the 
marrying  of  our  Sandy,  who  had  £500  a  year,  and  had, 
as  she  knew,  charged  himself  with  the  education  of  his 
brother. 

She  had,  at  least,  the  bravery  of  her  love,  and  as  she 
watched  Sandy,  reckless  with  fish-bones,  and  then  bolting 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  149 

his  beef  with  as  great  a  disregard  for  his  digestion  in  his 
absent-mindedness,  she  loved  him  very  dearly. 

He,  meantime,  was  thinking  about  her.  He  had  kissed 
her,  and  he  knew  that  she  cared  for  him  in  a  way,  although, 
in  his  new-found  reverence  for  it,  he  would  not  have 
dreamed  of  applying  to  her  feeling  the  sacred  word 
"love." 

A  beguin,  he  called  it.  Yes,  just  a  beguin.  But  because 
no  goodness  on  earth  could  possibly  equal  that  of  Viola,  he 
wished  to  be  as  good  as  lay  in  his  black  and  evil  nature, 
and  no  one  knows  how  black  and  evil  he  thought  himself 
in  comparison  with  Viola. 

And  kissing  women  one  does  not  love  suddenly  appeared 
to  him  as  something  closely  approaching  a  crime. 

He  had  been  a  beast,  and  the  poor  girl  might  have  mis- 
understood him.  He  rose  from  the  table  with  a  fixed  de- 
termination in  his  mind. 

He  played  a  game  of  billiards  with  the  other  Sandy, 
talked  about  the  chance  of  mild  weather  holding  with 
Keith,  and  then  went  to  the  Yellow  Drawing-room,  where 
the  two  ladies  were  reading.  Ben  was  in  the  library,  he 
knew,  and  Paul,  who  sat  at  the  piano,  picking  out  a  song 
from  the  score  of  "Patience,"  did  not  count. 

"Miss  Penrose, "  he  called  out,  as  he  opened  the  door, 
' '  come  along  out  and  have  a  look  at  the  ruin.  It 's  a  glori- 
ous night,  and  I  have  something  to  tell  you." 

She  rose,  flushing  a  little,  and  lamenting  his  lack  of  at- 
mosphere. A  trifle  of  mystery  in  his  manner  would  have 
pleased  her  more. 

"Do  you  mind,  Mrs.  Sharrow?"  she  said. 

"No,  of  course  not.  But  get  something  to  put  around 
you,  or  you'll  take  cold." 

Miss  Penrose 's  prettiest  shawl  already  lay  on  a  chest 
near  the  moat-door,  out  of  which  Sandy  had  that  afternoon 
gone,  all  unsuspectingly,  to  meet  his  fate. 


150  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

She  wrapped  the  shawl  around  her  shoulders,  and  in 
silence  followed  him  out  on  to  the  little  bridge. 

"A  jolly  night,  isn't  it?"  he  began,  nervously. 

"Yes.    'In  such  anight  as  this — 

She  knew  that  he  read  Shakespeare,  but  he  did  not 
respond  now,  and  stood,  looking  very  big,  leaning  on  the 
hand-rail  that  had  been  added  to  the  ancient  bridge  after 
a  child  of  the  family  had,  in  Queen  Anne 's  day,  fallen  from 
it  into  the  water  and  been  drowned. 

"Miss  Penrose " 

"Yes,  Mr.— Sandy?" 

"You  don't  want  to  go  to  the  ruin,"  he  said,  hurriedly. 
"It's  a  goodish  bit  of  a  walk,  and  the  grass  is  damp.  Look 
here,  I  wish  to  apologize  to  you." 

"To— apologize?" 

"Yes.  I  was — a  brute,  this  afternoon,  and  I  beg  your 
pardon." 

There  was  a  long  pause. 

"Will  you   forgive  me?" 

' '  Yes. ' '  She  spoke  very  slowly,  pulling  the  fringe  of  the 
shawl  over  her  face,  so  that  he  could  not  see  her  expres- 
sion. "Yes — but  I  do  not  see  that  I  have  anything  to  for- 
give. It  was  my  fault." 

"Oh,  no!"  Sandy  protested  with  energy,  "not  a  bit  of  it. 
It  was  mine,  the  fault,  entirely.  It  was  just  that — well, 
you  did  look  so  infernally  pretty  in  the  firelight — I  suppose 
I  lost  my  head.  Young  men  do,  you  know,"  he  added,  in 
the  wisdom  of  his  young  love. 

"Do  they?"  Maggie  Penrose  asked  softly.  She  was 
clever  enough  to  let  him  do  the  talking,  knowing  that  the 
more  he  said  the  more  chance  there  was  that  she  might 
entrap  him. 

"Yes.  I — well,  I  have  asked  your  pardon,  and  you  have 
given  it  to  me.  Shall  we  go  back?" 

"Not  quite  yet.    It  is  so  cool  and  lovely  here.     And — 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  151 

Paul  is  in  the  drawing-room.  He,  too,  thinks  that  young 
men  lose  their  heads — only  he  thinks  it  beforehrnd,  as  a 
justification  of  whatever  he  wants  to  do." 

"Paul  is  a  beast,"  said  Sandy,  with  emphasis.  "Has 
he  been  annoying  you  ? ' ' 

"No — no — not  exactly.  That  is,  he  has  annoyed  me, 
but  he  may  not  have  meant  to.  I  fear, ' '  she  added,  with  a 
little  rueful  laugh,  "that  his  very  existence  annoys  me!" 

"lam  sorry.  If  he  does  anything,  just  tell  me,  will  you, 
and  I'll " 

She  laid  a  pretty  hand  on  his  arm.  "Oh,  no,  no.  You 
must  not.  You  must  not  say  a  word  to  him.  It  is  only 
that  I  hate  being  touched  by  people  I  do  not  love,  and 
— he  comes  very  close  to  one."  Then  she  added:  "Mr. 
Sandy,  do  not  think  you  annoyed  me  this  afternoon.  I 
said  it  was  my  fault,  and  it  was.  I  could  have  stopped 
you,  but — I  didn't,  because — well,  you  are  Syd's  brother, 
and,  after  all — you  kissed  me  because  you  liked  me,  at  least 
at  that  minute,  and  I  am  so  lonely,  I  like  to  be  liked ! ' ' 

Sandy  knew  that  she  was  telling  him  with  remarkable 
clarity  that  she  liked  him  to  kiss  her ;  and  that  her  attitude 
in  so  doing  amounted  to  an  invitation  to  repeat  the  experi- 
ment. 

He  saw  all  this,  and  disliked  her  for  it,  even  while  he 
was  sorry  for  her,  while  her  little  plaint,  "I  am  very 
lonely, ' '  touched  him. 

He  stood  rigid  in  the  moonlight,  his  arm  in  its  inexpres- 
siveness  feeling  to  her  sensitive  hand  like  a  stone  balustrade, 
or  a  window-sill. 

"Oh,  now  I  see!  Now  I  understand!  You  are  not 
shocked  at  yourself,"  she  cried,  suddenly,  looking  up  at 
him,  her  face  quivering,  "you  are  shocked  at  me.  You 
think  /  was  a  brute,  as  you  put  it.  You  think  I  was — fast, 
and  unwomanly!" 

Eeal  tears  sprang  to  her  beautiful  eyes,  and  how  was 


152  SHARROW 

he  to  know  that  they  were  tears  of  anger  and  wounded 
vanity,  as  well  as  of  hurt  love  ? 

He  had  hurt  a  woman,  and  he  felt  a  villain.  But  he  did 
not  move,  even  now.  He  was  as  immobile  as  a  statue. 

"I  say,  don 't  think  that.    It's  absurd!    Of  course  I  knew 

that — that "    He  wanted  to  say  that  her  yielding  had 

been  prompted  only  by  kindness,  but  he  was  very  young, 
and  he  was  truthful.  So  his  words  stumbled,  and  stopped, 
as  she  put  her  head  against  his  arm,  and  burst  into  real 
tears. 

"I  am  so  ashamed,"  he  went  on,  gazing  desperately 
over  her  head  into  the  darkness  under  the  trees.  "I  was 
a  swine." 

' '  It  was  only  because  I  was  so  lonely.  I  haven 't  a  rela- 
tion in  the  world, ' '  she  sobbed,  forgetting  the  claims  of  two 
sisters  and  three  aunts,  all  resident  in  Wimbledon,  "and 
Mrs.  Sharrow  has  been  so  kind  to  me — just  like  a 
mother ' ' 

Sandy's  set  face  relaxed  into  a  not  quite  pleasant  grin. 
The  idea  of  his  mother  being  to  anyone  but  Syd  "just  like 
a  mother,"  held  for  him  a  rather  bitter  amusement. 

"Oh,  I  could  kill  myself  for  being  such  a  fool!"  the  girl 
went  on  with  passion  in  her  voice,  raising  her  head  ar.d 
showing  her  tear-stained  face.  "It  seemed  for  a  moment 
as  if  you  were  my  brother,  as  well  as  Syd's." 

This  time  his  grin  was  mental,  for  she  was  looking  at 
him,  but  grin  he  did,  for  he  was  not  so  young  nor  such 
a  fool  as  to  believe  in  the  truth  of  this  charming 
touch. 

He  knew  perfectly  well  that  she  was  in  love  with  him 
— in  her  way,  a  way,  of  course,  that  would  be  to  Viola's, 
when  Viola  did  come  to  love  him,  as  the  light  of  a  penny 
dip  to  the  glory  of  the  sun. 

' '  Well,  well,  well, ' '  he  said,  gently,  patting  her  arm  with 
the  air  of  an  ancient  uncle,  "wipe  your  eyes,  and  we  will 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  153 

go  back  to  the  others.  I  thank  you  for  forgiving  me,  and 
I  will  never  offend  you  again." 

They  returned  to  the  house,  and  Miss  Penrose  favored 
the  company,  at  Mrs.  Sharrow's  request,  with  a  little 
Chopin.  She  played  softly,  delicately,  and  not  even  Sandy 
dreamed  of  the  torrent  of  rage  that  was  in  her  heart.  It 
is  very  probable  that  she  loved  him  for  his  resistance  more 
than  ever ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  she  hated  him  as  well. 

He  had  made  several  mistakes,  in  his  young  wisdom, 
and,  even  while  she  played,  she  began  to  see  vaguely  that 
there  must  be  some  concrete  reason  for  his  change  of  man- 
ner. 

And,  of  course,  from  the  very  second  of  this  perception 
she  set  her  wits  to  work  to  find  out  the  reason. 

"Play  the  Berceuse,"  suggested  Paul,  who  was  leaning 
over  the  piano. 

And  presently  the  lulling,  dreamy  melody  filled  the 
lamplit  room,  sending  by  its  magic  everyone  who  heard  it 
to  his  or  her  little  private  dreamland. 

Sandy,  of  course,  was  with  Viola;  Keith,  who  had  come 
in  to  chat  with  his  so-called  ' '  aunt, ' '  whom  he  rather  liked, 
dwelt  for  a  few  minutes  in  a  happy  country  where  it  never 
froze,  and  where  his  new  horses  feared  no  jump;  Sandy 
the  Heir  took  mild  pleasure  in  the  thought  of  his  fiancee, 
who  was  to  become  his  wife  in  the  autumn ;  Mrs.  Sharrow  's 
whole  being  was  with  Syd,  in  a  rosy  future  quite  unlike 
anything  likely  to  come  to  pass ;  and  even  Paul  was  dream- 
ing. His  dreams  were  centred  in  the  pianist.  He  was  to 
be  a  parson,  and  he  was  no  fool.  Therefore,  it  is  improb- 
able that  he  saw  Maggie  Penrose  as  a  parson's  wife.  But 
his  thoughts  were  certainly  centred  in  her. 

And  the  girl  herself,  as  her  soft,  strong  fingers  made  the 
piano  sing  the  exquisite  melody,  thought  thoughts  strangely 
at  variance  with  it. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

SANDY  the  Heir  received  his  grandfather's  guests,  the 
following  evening,  and  he  did  it  very  well,  with  much  dig- 
nity and  even  a  certain  charm. 

Nearly  everyone  came  who  had  been  invited,  for  a  party 
at  Sharrow  was  a  very  unusual  event,  the  last  having  taken 
place  five  years  ago,  on  the  occasion  of  the  coming  of  age 
of  its  future  master. 

So  the  county,  as  the  White  Shirley  Monitor  expressed 
it  the  following  day,  was  fully  represented. 

People  were  naturally  curious  about  the  young  man 
who  was  to  come  into  the  vast  and  ancient  property ;  there 
was  about  the  Sharrow  history  much  that  was  rather  hor- 
rible, something  even  approaching  the  disgraceful,  but 
there  was  much  of  real  romance. 

It  is  rare  for  all  the  men  of  the  house,  almost  without 
exceptions,  to  carry  out  its  traditions  as  did  the  Sharrows. 
They  had  been,  as  history  as  well  as  memory  reminded 
people,  almost  all  of  them  wild  as  hawks  in  their  youth, 
and  then  after  marriage,  while  always  retaining  a  certain 
strain  of  fierceness  and  roughness,  very  decent  members  of 
society. 

The  present  lord  had  broken  the  record  by  remaining  a 
profligate  to  the  extreme  limits  of  old  age,  but  even  he  had 
done  well  by  his  lands,  and  would,  people  said,  leave  more 
than  he  had  received.  Moreover,  the  story  of  his  misfor- 
tune in  love  was  public  property,  and  had  never  been  for- 
gotten; he  had  some  excuse. 

154 


SHARROW  155 

And  now  here  was  the  heir  apparently  bent,  by  his  ex- 
treme correctness,  on  further  denying  the  old  tradition. 

"I  vow  I  should  be  afraid  to  give  one  of  my  grand- 
daughters to  him,"  one  old  woman  declared,  with  vehe- 
mence, as  she  settled  at  whist  in  the  Chinese  Room.  ' '  These 
Sharrows  can't  be  respectable  all  their  lives;  not  one  of 
'em  ever  has,  according  to  the  story,  and  this  boy  surely 
has  not  had  his  fling.  He's  bound  to  have  it  sooner  or 
later." 

"Perhaps  his  grandfather's  double  share  will  go  down 
to  his  account — even  things  up,"  suggested  her  partner 
with  a  chuckle.  "I  am  sorry  the  old  villain  is  ill,  I 
haven 't  seen  him  for  fifteen  years,  and  should  like  to. ' ' 

"Yes,  so  should  I.  I,  you  know,  was  to  have  been  poor 
dear  Cyrilla's  maid-of-honor — I  saw  a  lot  of  him  at  that 
time." 

The  other  lady  at  the  table  turned  to  her  interestedly. 
"Oh,  did  you,  Lady  Charlotte?  Do  tell  me  about  him. 
Was  he  very  attractive?  My  father  used  to  say " 

But  Lady  Charlotte  brooked  no  rivals.  "Your  father 
my  dear  Audrey,  hardly  knew  Sandy  Sharrow  at  all.  Was 
he  attractive?  Dear  me,  yes.  He  was — wonderful.  As 
ugly  Qs  sin,  you  know,  like  all  of  'em,  but  with  a  charming 
manner,  and  the  most  beautiful  voice !  The  young  man 
who  is  dancing  so  much  with  Jimmie  Wymondham's  girl  is 
like  him,  I  should  say,  only  rougher.  There  were  moments 
when  Sandy  was  not  rough,  and  then,  my  dear,  no  words 
on  earth  can  express  his — smoothness!" 

' '  Really  ?  And  who  is  the  boy  dancing  with  Viola  Wy- 
mondham  ? ' ' 

"That's  another  Sandy  Sharrow,  Sydney  Sharrow 's 
son — but  you  never  saw  Sydney.  He  married  a  French 
woman." 

Mr.  Boreham  saw  that  Lady  Charlotte  wished  him  to 
subside  and  let  her  talk,  but  he  would  not.  He  was  a 


156  SHARROW 

small,  compact  man  with  an  obstinate  chin  and  a  prodigious 
memory. 

' '  This  Sandy, ' '  he  went  on  deliberately,  ' '  is  the  old  gen- 
tleman's  favorite.  He  is  a  nice  boy,  but  I  should  not  call 
him  fascinating,  as  his  great-uncle  must  have  been." 

"Bosh!"  exploded  Lady  Charlotte,  "what  boy  of 
twenty-three  ever  was  fascinating?  Sharrow  was  twenty- 
seven  when  he  married.  Now  then,  Mr.  Boreham,  suppose 
we  get  on  with  the  game?" 

Viola,  in  white,  was  wonderfully  lovely,  and  Sandy  dwelt 
from  men  apart  in  a  heaven  inhabited  only  by  her  and 
him.  He  danced,  though  with  vigor,  without  any  remark- 
able grace,  yet  she  gave  him  all  the  dances  he  dared  ask 
for. 

Keith,  who  danced  perfectly,  devoted  himself  to  Mary 
Wymondham,  who  excelled  her  sister  as  he  did  his  cousin. 

"Vi  dances  well,"  the  youth  remarked,  as  he  and  Mary 
waltzed,  "but  not  nearly  as  well  as  you." 

"Nonsense!"  Mary's  eyes  rested  on  her  sister  with  an 
expression  of  almost  passionate  love. 

* '  It  isn  't  nonsense.  She 's  light  because  she  weighs  noth- 
ing; you're  light  because  you  are  marvellously  well-bal- 
anced." 

They  stopped  dancing,  and  Mary  said  in  an  abrupt  way 
that  seemed  natural  to  her.  "Let's  go  up  in  the  gallery 
and  look  on  for  a  while,  shall  we  ? " 

He  assented,  and  they  climbed  the  stairs  and  sat  down, 
leaning  their  arms  on  the  broad  oak  balustrade. 

It  was  a  beautiful  sight,  the  Great  Hall  full  of  dancers. 

They  were  silent  for  a  minute,  and  then  the  young  man 
and  the  girl,  who  had  been  playmates  in  their  childhood, 
turned  and  looked  at  each  other. 

"You  have  changed  since  I  saw  you  last,  Keith,"  she 
said.  "Let  me  see,  when  was  it?" 

"I  don't  know.    Wasn't  it  at  Lady  Armerod's  ball?" 


SHAEEOW  157 

' '  No,  I  was  in  France  then.  It  must  have  been  two  years 
ago — yes,  it  was.  I  saw  you  one  day  in  the  village,  don't 
you  remember?" 

"Oh,  yes,  of  course.  It  rained  and  we  all  took  refuge 
at  the  doctor's.  Well — so  I'm  changed?" 

"Yes.  You  aren't  a  real  Sharrow,  you  know.  Sandy 
isn't,  either — I  mean  your  brother — but  he  is  more  than 
you. ' ' 

' '  If  you  mean  that  we  are  not  as  ugly  as  Chinese  goblins, 
thanks — in  his  name  and  mine." 

The  young  man  laughed  and  bowed. 

"You  certainly  aren't  ugly.  He  is  really  handsome. 
But  you  aren't  Sharrow-y  at  all,  are  you?" 

"Our  hair  is  red." 

"Eeddish.  Your  noses  are  too  small,"  the  girl  went  on 
thoughtfully,  her  eyes  noting  with  great  calm  each  feature 
as  she  named  it,  "your  mouths  aren't  stern  enough,  your 
chin  doesn't  stick  out  at  all." 

"Thanking  you  again  and  again — the  other  Sandy  must 
be  more  satisfactory  to  your  critical  eye." 

Mary  laughed.  "He  is!  He  is  really  absurdly  like 
his  great-uncle,  isn't  he?" 

' '  He  would  be  pleased  at  that ! ' ' 

"Well,  but  isn't  he?  I  haven't  seen  him  angry,  but  I'm 
sure  his  jaw  protrudes,  now  doesn't  it?" 

Keith,  who  did  not  care  much  for  women,  and  was 
rather  bored,  laughed.  "If  it  will  do  you  any  good,  Mary, ' ' 
he  said,  "I  don't  mind  telling  you  that  when  he  is  angry 
he  is  as  ugly  as  the  very  devil  himself ! ' ' 

She  glanced  at  him. 

"Thanks.    Now  let's  go  down.    You  want  to  dance." 

He  did  not  protest,  and  presently  left  her  standing  by  her 
father,  and  went  to  seek  a  partner. 

Her  father  was  talking  to  an  old  man  whom  she  did 
not  know,  and  so  for  some  time  the  girl  stood  studying 


158  SHARROW 

in  detail  the  scene  which,  as  a  whole,  had  been  so  effective 
from  the  gallery. 

There  were  about  thirty  couples  on  the  floor,  but  it  was 
not  at  all  crowded  because  the  hall  was  very  large.  There 
was  Sandy  the  Heir  waltzing  with  one  of  Lady  Charlotte 
Grantley's  granddaughters,  and  Keith  with  a  pretty  wo- 
man in  old  gold  satin,  and  yonder  young  Paul  stood  talk- 
ing to  his  partner. 

Mary  wondered  who  she  was.  Whoever  she  was,  the 
Vicar's  daughter  decided  with  a  fastidious  shrug,  she  was 
flirting  with  Paul,  whose  smooth,  apricot-colored  cheeks 
had  flushed  to  a  warmer  hue  than  that  which  they  naturally 
wore. 

The  strange  girl,  like  several  other  women  present,  wore 
black,  but  Mary  knew  that  this  glittering  garment  was  ex- 
pensive as  well  as  becoming.  Vaguely  it  made  her  think  of 
the  stage. 

"Sandy." 

Our  Sandy  stopped,  Viola  was  dancing  with  Sir  John 
Wycherley,  and  he  was  waiting  for  her. 

"Hullo,  Mary,  not  dancing?     Come  along " 

"No,  thanks,  I'd  rather  look  on.  Sandy,  tell  me,  who  is 
the  pretty  woman  Paul  is  making  love  to?" 

"Paul?  I  can't  see — oh,  yes.  It's  Syd's — my  brother's 
— governess,  Miss  Penrose." 

He  eyed  the  split  thumb  of  his  second  pair  of  gloves 
as  he  spoke.  Mary  eyed  him. 

"A  flirt,"  she  said. 

Sandy  chuckled.  "Is  she?  Yes,  I  dare  say.  Pretty, 
isn't  she?" 

"Extremely.     Paul  thinks  so,  too." 

"Paul  does.  I  hope  he's  not  annoying  her."  There 
was  real  anxiety  in  his  eyes  as  he  leaned  forward  to  try  to 
catch  another  glimpse,  through  the  shifting  foreground,  of 
his  cousin. 


SHARROW  159 

"She  doesn't  look  annoyed,  Sandy.     I  don't  like  her." 

Mary's  voice  was  always  sure,  but  it  was  surer  than 
usual  as  she  uttered  these  words,  and  her  face  was  stern. 
She  was  a  person  of  strong  likes  and  dislikes,  and  he 
remembered,  always  too  cocksure  to  be  perfectly  agree- 
able. 

"Don't  you?  I  am  sorry  for  her.  It  must  be  horrible 
for  a  girl — earning  her  own  living " 

Then  Viola  came  in  sight,  being  subjected  by  her  un- 
skillful partner  to  a  series  of  jerks  and  bumps  of  which 
he,  judging  by  his  serene  face,  was  happily  unconscious. 

Mary  watched  as  Sir  John  cannoned  into  a  fat  lady 
and  during  the  subsequent  apologies  allowed  Sandy  to 
carry  off  his  pretty  partner. 

Miss  Penrose  watched  the  little  incident,  too,  and  Mary 
caught  a  glimpse  of  her  face  as  Sandy  and  Viola  passed 
them. 

"Handsome  girl,  the  governess,  eh?"  asked  Sir  John, 
joining  her.  "My  wife  says  she  looks  dangerous,  and,  by 
Jove !  I  believe  she  does. ' ' 

"Lady  Wycherley  seems  to  be  very  discriminating,"  re- 
turned Mary  absently.  "No,  thanks,  I'd  rather  not  dance." 

Meantime  Paul  was  having  a  very  good  time,  as  he  put 
it  mentally.  Never  before  had  Miss  Penrose  been  so  charm- 
ing to  him,  and,  hopeful  sign,  she  certainly  was  flirting  with 
him,  even  while  she  asked  questions  about  Mary  Wymond- 
ham. 

Paul  had  known  the  Vicarage  girls  ever  since  he  was  a 
very  small  boy,  although  they  had  of  late  years  been  a 
great  deal  away ;  and  now,  as  he  watched  his  companion 's 
beautiful  face,  glowing  and  eager  as  he  had  never  yet  seen 
it,  he  consciously  allowed  her  to  draw  him,  telling  her,  be- 
cause it  kept  her  by  his  side,  all  he  knew  of  Mary.  She 
did  not  mention  Viola. 

"She  isn't  handsome,  but  she  looks  very  nice,"  was 


160  SHARROW 

Miss  Penrose's  comment,  when  he  could  think  of  no  more 
to  say.  "I  wonder  whom  she  will  marry." 

"What  on  earth  has  made  you  so  interested  in  Mary 
Wymondham  ? ' '  the  young  man  asked.  ' '  She  isn  't  the  least 
your  sort — or  mine,  either,"  he  added  hastily.  "She's  a 
regular  young  God  Almighty — knows  everything,  and 
wants  to  rule  everybody.  Now  Viola ' ' 

But  Miss  Penrose  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "The  other 
one  does  not  interest  me.  She  is — a  bread-and-butter  miss, 
although  so  lovely." 

"Let's  go  and  have  some  claret-cup.  She's  not  my 
kind,  either.  But,"  he  added,  with  a  chuckle,  "don't  let 
Sandy  hear  you  say  that — my  cousin,  I  mean." 

She  took  his  arm.  "Yes,  I  should  love  something  cold 
to  drink.  Oh,  then,  '  Sandy '  is  interested  in  her  ? ' ' 

Paul  laughed,  for  once  in  his  life  quite  without  malice. 

"Where  are  your  eyes?  '  he  asked. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE  next  day  Lord  Sharrow  had  two  very  strange  and 
very  important  interviews.  The  first  of  these  came  to  him 
without  his  own  volition,  the  other  he  arranged  himself. 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  and  the  house  seemed  very 
quiet,  for  Sandy  the  Heir,  Keith,  and  Ben  Frith  had  gone. 

Lord  Sharrow,  who  was  tired  of  his  own  rooms,  and  yet 
not  sufficiently  recovered  to  subject  himself  to  accidental 
intercourse  with  the  members  of  his  house-party,  had  had 
"Waters  install  him  in  the  Chinese  Room,  and  there,  sur- 
rounded by  Chinese  monsters,  vases,  and  bronzes,  the  old 
man  was  encamped  by  the  fire. 

When  Sandy  knocked,  and  was  bidden  to  enter,  he 
stood  for  several  seconds  in  silence. 

The  beauty  of  the  old-fashioned  lighting  systems  is  that 
under  them  the  room  is  as  subject  to  change  of  expression 
as  is  the  human  face. 

The  brilliance  of  an  oil  lamp,  is,  owing  to  the  state  of  its 
wick,  the  amount  of  oil  in  it,  the  very  outdoor  atmosphere, 
subject  to  great  variations;  the  shadows  made  by  it  vary 
in  intensity,  and  even  in  size ;  what  one  evening  remains 
in  relative  obscurity,  can  the  next  glitter  bravely,  while  the 
foreground  of  the  night  before  retires  into  duskiness. 

The  fairy  qualities  of  wax  candles  need  no  comment. 

Now  Sharrow  was  lighted  from  garret  to  cellar  by 
lamps  and  candles.  And  Sandy,  going  into  the  Chinese 
Room  that  evening,  stood  still  in  the  doorway  to  look  at  his 
old  relati\e  in  this  new  frame. 

161 


162  S  H  A  E  R  0  W 

The  walls  of  the  room  were  hung  in  once  white,  now 
ivory-colored,  satin,  completely  covered  with  a  web  of 
finest,  most  delicate  embroidery. 

Seen  in  detail,  Sandy  knew,  there  were  small  mandarins 
in  red  and  yellow  and  blue,  going  up  nearly  perpendicular 
staircases;  there  were  be-trousered  ladies  of  high  degree 
sitting  in  pagodas  drinking  tea;  there  were  lions,  griffins, 
strange  dogs,  and  dragons  rich  in  spangled  tail.  There 
were  fabulous  flowers  and  lovely  willows  weeping  green 
tears  in  a  high  wind  which  luckily  refused  to  ruffle  the 
mandarins  and  the  ladies.  It  was  wonderful  embroidery, 
and  of  great  value,  but  to  the  young  man  it  had  that  day 
a  new  and  rather  startling  aspect. 

It  was  a  magnificent  background  for  a  red-faced,  sinis- 
ter old  man,  who,  wrapped  against  a  possible  taint  of  chill 
in  the  rarely-used  room,  sat  by  the  fire  in  a  mandarin's 
coat  of  blue,  embroidered  all  over  with  malevolent  looking 
dragons. 

"Come  in,  Sandy,  come  in.  Shut  the  door,  will  you? 
"Well,  what  are  you  looking  at?  Oh,  at  this!"  He 
glanced  down  at  his  coat  with  a  smile  that  did  not 
lessen  his  resemblance  to  a  jabberwock-like,  porcelain 
monster  who  sat  on  a  tall  teak-wood  tub  behind  him. 
"It's  a  fine  coat,  if  you  like  chinolseries.  Well,  what  has 
happened  ? ' ' 

Sandy  stood  before  him.  "Great-uncle,"  he  said,  rather 
solemnly,  ' '  I  have  something  to  tell  you. ' ' 

The  porcelain  dragon  seemed  to  wink  in  the  lamplight, 
but  the  old  man's  face  wore  a  peculiar,  arrested  look. 
He  waited  in  silence,  his  dark  veined  hands  folded  on  a 
big  golden  sun. 

"I  wish  to  marry,"  Sandy  went  on,  slowly,  "and — you 
have  been  so  very  kind  to  me — I  thought  I  would  tell  you 
before  I — say  anything  definite  to — her." 

Lord  Sharrow  did  not  move. 


SHARROW  163 

"I — of  course,  I  am  not  sure  about  her  answer,"  Sandy 
went  on,  simply,  "but  I  think  she  will  have  me." 

Presently  he  added,  "Of  course,  I  am  not  nearly  good 
enough  for  her." 

There  was  another  pause,  and  then  at  last  Lord  Shar- 
row  spoke: 

"Miss  Penrose,  I  suppose?" 

"Good  heavens,  sir,  TIC!" 

"No?  Then — who?  You  have  seen  no  one  here.  Some- 
one in  London?" 

' '  I  know  I  have  seen  her  only  a  little,  Great-uncle,  but — 
one  look  was  enough.  It's  Viola,  of  course." 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  for  over  sixty  years 
Alexander  Sharrow  had  hated  with  a  hatred  that  was 
Old  Testament-like  in  its  intensity  both  the  woman  he  had 
always  thought  of  as  Cyrilla  Dallaford,  and  her  descend- 
ants. It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  he  knew  his  own  life 
to  have  been  wasted,  and  that  he  blamed  Cyrilla  Dallaford 
for  that  waste;  that  he  knew  himself  to  have  had  great 
gifts,  and  to  have  neglected  them  for  her  sake.  He  had 
loved  his  hatred  and  cherished  it,  and  he  believed  it  to 
be  a  perfectly  justifiable  one. 

And  he  was  eighty  years  old,  he  was  ill,  and  Sandy, 
the  one  human  being  whom  he  loved,  wished  to  marry  the 
girl  in  whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of  his  enemy,  and  the 
man  for  whose  sake  he  had  been  betrayed. 

Very  quietly,  without  a  single  violent  word,  Lord  Shar- 
row refused  his  consent  to  his  great-nephew 's  marriage  with 
Miss  Wymondham. 

"You  know  my  reasons,"  he  added,  still  without  mov- 
ing. "If  you  disobey  me,  I  will  never  see  you  again,  and 
I  will  never  again  give  you  one  penny.  I  have  no  more  to 
say.  Good  evening. ' ' 

Sandy  turned,  and  marched  out  of  the  room. 

He  would,  he  knew,  never  forget  the  scene :  all  the  little 


164  SHARROW 

Chinamen  climbing  their  stairs  in  the  lamplight;  the 
smiling  green  and  white  animal  on  the  barrel-like  stand ;  the 
hideous  old  man,  very  pale,  in  his  embroidered  coat. 

Sandy  went  to  the  hall  door,  and  out  into  the  courtyard 
he  so  loved. 

It  was  a  dark,  cloudy  evening,  and  the  flames  of  the  big 
torches  were  already  blowing  about  in  their  corners,  cast- 
ing great  shadows  up  the  walls  and  across  the  cobblestones. 
The  moon  was  hidden  by  a  huge  black  cloud,  and  a  few 
drops  of  rain  began  to  fall. 

Sandy  stood,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his  smooth,  red 
head  shining  in  the  torchlight.  He  had  not  told  his  great- 
uncle  quite  all  the  truth,  though  he  had  told  him  nothing 
but  the  truth.  He  was  sure  that  Viola  cared  for  him.  He 
had  known  last  night,  and  that  day  at  luncheon  at  the 
Vicarage  had,  though  he  had  not  seen  her  alone,  made  him 
doubly  sure.  He  never  doubted  but  that  she  would,  if  she 
loved  him,  marry  him  without  a  penny,  but  he  could  not 
do  her  that  wrong.  They  must  wait,  and  he  would  work. 

The  fact  that  he  was  not  adapted  to  any  particular 
work  did  not  occur  to  him.  He  was  young;  he  was  healthy 
— surely  he  could  do  what  so  many  other  young  men  had 
succeeded  in  doing. 

He  would  go  to  the  Vicarage  at  once,  and  ask  her  to 
wait  for  him.  And  then  he  would  tell  his  great-uncle 
and  leave  Sharrow  forever. 

Some  one  opened  the  door  of  the  Great  Hall  to  the 
right  of  where  he  stood,  and  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
fireplace  gilded  by  the  dancing  flames  of  a  great  log.  His 
heart  contracted  as  if  a  hand  were  crushing  it. 

Leave  Sharrow?  Suddenly  all  the  old  feeling  came 
over  him;  the  love  that  was  almost  a  pain;  the  dream- 
feeling  that  it  was  a  part  of  him,  and  he  a  part  of  it. 

For  a  long  moment  he  yearned  over  the  old  place,  his 
brows  drawn  down  over  his  eyes  that  were  almost  hidden 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  165 

in  a  network  of  wrinkles,  his  hands  clenched  in  his  pock- 
ets. He  loved  it  horribly.  Life  would  be  an  imperfect 
thing  without  it;  with  it,  a  great  part  of  his  own  self 
must  go. 

Then  his  face  cleared  slowly,  the  blood  rushed  back  to 
his  cheeks,  he  drew  his  cramped  hands  out  of  his  pockets, 
looked  at  them  curiously,  stretched  the  fingers,  and  drew 
a  deep  breath. 

"Then — it  must  go,"  he  said,  aloud. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

"MR.  SHARROW — Sandy." 

He  started,  for  out  of  the  shadows  opposite  him,  coming 
from  a  small  staircase  leading  up  to  the  more  modern  of 
the  bedrooms,  came  Maggie  Penrose. 

She  wore  a  sealskin  jacket,  Lord  Sharrow 's  Christmas 
present,  and  a  little  round  cap  of  the  same  fur.  And  in  the 
torchlight  he  could  see  that  she  was  deeply  excited. 

"Listen,"  she  said,  hurriedly,  catching  his  arm.  "I 
know  all  about  it,  and — you  must  let  me  help  you." 

"Help  me?    But — how  do  you  know?" 

"I  know  because  he  told  me,"  she  declared  boldly, 
"Lord  Sharrow,  I  mean.  I  went  in  to  play  cribbage  with 
him,  and — he  burst  out  and  told  me  all  about  it.  And — 
oh,  don't  do  anything  stupid!" 

Sandy  hated  her  knowing,  and  he  resented  his  great- 
uncle's  telling  her. 

"I  am  going  out,"  he  said.    "Good-by." 

She  caught  his  arm.  "But  you  can't  go  without  a  hat, 
and  it's  going  to  pour.  Come  back  in  just  for  a  minute,  and 
I  will  tell  you  how  you  can  make  him  forgive  you. ' ' 

' '  Confound  it,  Miss  Penrose ! — I  beg  your  pardon,  but  I 
wish  you'd  let  go  my  arm.  And — I  need  no  forgiveness 
from  Lord  Sharrow." 

"I  know,  I  know.  Don't  take  up  my  every  word.  Try 
and  get  the  sense " 

"I  know  the  sense  of  only  one  thing,"  he  answered, 
more  gently,  but  his  jaw  still  protruding  a  little.  "Thanks 

166 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  167 

very  much  for  wishing  to  help  me,  but — I  must  go  now. 
Good-by." 

Seeing  that  she  might  as  well  expect  to  move  the  house 
itself  as  to  make  him  give  up  his  newly  crystallized  plan, 
she  said  no  more.  He  walked  quickly  across  to  the  tower 
and  had  already  disappeared  under  its  shadow  when  she 
called  to  him. 

' '  Remember  Syd, ' '  she  said. 

He  stopped,  and  she  judged  by  the  unbroken  silence  that 
he  had  not  even  turned.  Then  the  old  gate-porter,  who  had 
heard  him  coming,  opened  the  big  doors  leading  to  the 
avenue,  and  Sandy  stood  silhouetted  against  the  gleam  of 
the  lake  and  the  darkness  of  the  western  sky. 

"Never  mind,  John,"  she  heard  him  say,  in  a  strange 
voice,  as  though  he  had  a  bad  cold,  "I — I  have  forgotten 
something  and  must  go  back. ' ' 

The  girl  stood  looking  at  him  as  he  returned  to  her 
side. 

"You  told  me  to  remember  my  brother,"  he  said  heavily. 
"You  are  right.  Thanks." 

And  again  she  stood  alone  in  the  windy  darkness,  the 
rain  splashing  her  hot  face,  as  he  crossed  the  court  and 
went  into  the  Great  Hall. 

After  a  few  minutes  she  went  in,  and  without  taking  off 
her  jacket,  went  straight  to  the  Chinese  Room. 

"Well?"  the  old  man  asked  impatiently  looking  up. 
"Did  you  catch  him?" 

"Yes.  He  was  just  going  to  the  Vicarage,  and  I  cut  him 
off  (I  saw  him  from  my  window),  in  the  courtyard.  He 
wouldn  't  listen  to  me,  though  I  told  him  I  had  come  from 
you " 

"You  idiot!  I  beg  your  pardon,  but  why  in  Heaven's 
name  did  you  tell  him  that?  The  very  thing  to  send  him 
off  hot-foot  to  the  girl!" 

"Not  at  all,"  she  retorted  calmly,  unfastening  her  jacket 


168  SHARROW 

and  sitting  down  unbidden.  "I  didn't  tell  him  that  you 
had  sent  for  me  to  tell  me — I  told  him  I  came  in  to  play 
cribbage,  as  usual,  and  that  you — well,  just  told  me,  on  an 
impulse. ' ' 

"Oh!  Well,  that's  a  little  better,"  he  conceded,  grudg- 
ingly. 

"A  'little  better?'  It  was  the  only  thing  to  do.  You 
must  remember  he  doesn't  like  me.  I  shouldn't  have  been 
able  to  keep  him  for  one  second  without  telling  him  I  had 
seen  you." 

Old  Sharrow  rose  and  moved  restlessly  about  the  beau- 
tiful room,  looking  so  much  one  of  themselves  among  the 
costly  and  hideous  monsters  of  the  collection  that  the 
girl's  quick  eyes  saw  the  resemblance  as  Sandy's  had. 

"And  he  came  back  in  with  you?" 

"No.  He  said  he  was  going  to  the  Vicarage.  He  left 
me,  and  went  as  far  as  the  Tower  door,  and  then" — she 
made  a  little  dramatic  pause — ' '  I  had  a  flash  of  genius. ' ' 

' '  Oh !  And  what  may  your  flash  of  genius  have  been  ? ' ' 
He  sneered,  but  she  did  not  care. 

' '  I  said  two  words  to  him.  Now,  Lord  Sharrow,  you  are 
so  much  cleverer  than  I — see  if  you  can  guess  the  two 
words  that  brought  him  back  into  the  house!" 

"Nonsense — of  course  I  can't  guess.  Tell  me — tell  me 
at  once,"  he  insisted.  She  smiled,  and  did  not  reply. 

"Tell  me."    This  time  there  was  pleading  in  his  voice. 

"I  said,  'Remember  Syd.' " 

After  a  short  silence  Lord  Sharrow  said,  "You  are  right. 
It  was  a  flash  of  genius.  I  was  right  in  telling  you.  You 
have  a  brain.  'Remember  Syd.'  Yes,  I  can  put  on  that 
screw.  And,"  his  voice  rose  angrily,  "by  God,  I  will!  I 
forgave  the  man,  and  asked  them  here — had  to — he  had 
been  kind  to  me.  But  I  would  rather  see  the  boy  dead 
than  married  to  Cyrilla  Dallaford's  daughter." 

"Granddaughter,"  corrected  Miss  Penrose. 


S  H  A  E  E  0  W  169 

He  nodded.  "Of  course,  of  course — granddaughter. 
Well,  if  he  does  marry  her,  his  beloved  Syd  can  go  to  the 
Blue  Coat  School  for  all  I  care.  Not  one  penny  will  I 
give  towards  his  education — not  one  farthing.  And  I  will 
tell  him  so,  too.  Just  ring  the  bell,  please,  will  you?" 

She  did  not  move.  It  was,  she  realized  with  great 
poignancy,  the  turn  in  the  tide  of  her  affairs.  Lord  Shar- 
row  meant  to  use  her ;  she  could,  with  a  little  skill,  manage 
to  use  him. 

"The  bell  is  at  your  elbow,"  he  added. 

She  rose. 

"Lord  Sharrow,"  she  began,  very  slowly,  her  fingers 
interlaced,  her  eyes  downcast,  "may  I  speak  to  you  quite 
frankly?" 

He  grunted  assent,  his  eyes  on  the  bell. 

"What  you  wish  is  to  prevent  your  great-nephew's  mar- 
rying Miss  Wymondham?" 

"Yes." 

"And — you  would  do  nearly  anything  to  prevent  such  a 
marriage?" 

"Nearly  anything?  I  would  do  anything  on  earth  to 
prevent  it.  And  I  will  prevent  it,  too,  I'll — I'll " 

She  held  up  her  hand.  "Please  let  me  finish.  Then,  if 
you  do  not  like  my  plan,  I  will  ring  the  bell,  and  you  can 
send  for  him,  and — and  spoil  it  all  in  your  own  way." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  growled,  but  looking  at  her 
with  unwilling  interest. 

' '  I  mean  this.  He  is  already  very  angry  with  you,  and — 
mind  you,  I  have  seen  him  since  you  did,  and  I  know 
what  his  state  of  mind  is.  At  one  word  from  you  he  would 
take  Syd,  marry  Miss  Wymondham  and  leave  the  country 
to  'make  his  living'  in  Australia  or  America!" 

The  old  man  heard  the  scorn  underlying  her  words, 
"make  his  living,"  and  his  attention  deepened  and  quick- 
ened. For  several  minutes  he  sat  watching  his  confederate, 


170  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

while  she  unfolded  to  him  a  plan  that  had  two  great 
merits:  it  was  very  simple,  and  it  would  undoubtedly 
keep  Sandy  near  his  great-uncle  for  a  year. 

The  girl  spoke  rather  slowly,  a  thing  that  invariably  im- 
presses hot-headed  people,  and  she  spoke  with  an  assump- 
tion of  authority  that  left  to  the  old  man  only  a  passive 
part  to  play. 

And  he  was  very  tired. 

Presently  she  paused,  and  he  answered  her. 

"I  agree  with  you,"  he  said,  "and  I  will  take  your  ad- 
vice. Will  you  do  your  first  part  this  evening,  and  let 
me  know,  before  I  go  to  bed,  what  he  says?" 

"I  will,  Lord  Sharrow." 

"I  will  not  ask  you,"  he  said  with  a  change  of  voice 
that  did  not  escape  her  quick  ear,  "why  you  are  so  beau- 
tifully ready  to  sacrifice  yourself  on  the  altar  of  friend- 
ship to  a  poor  old  wreck  like  me." 

She  looked  him  full  in  the  eyes.  "Do  not  sneer,"  she 
said.  "You  know  quite  well  why  I  wish  to  prevent  his 
marrying  Viola  Wymondham.  I  love  him  myself,  and  you 
know  it.  Therefore,  it  is  not  kind  to  jeer  at  me." 

' '  I  beg  your  pardon,  Miss  Penrose.  You  are  quite  right 
to  rebuke  me,  and  I  beg  your  pardon.  But — I  think  it  fair 
to  tell  you  that  I  will  never  consent  to  his  marrying  you, 
either." 

She  started  and  flushed.  "Sandy  Sharrow  would  never 
dream  of  marrying  me,"  she  said,  with  the  dignity  that 
had  impressed  him  before,  "because  he  does  not  love  me. 
There  will  never  be  any  question  of  that." 

"Good.  Then — our  unholy  pact  is  sealed.  Wait  a  mo- 
ment." He  opened  the  drawer  of  one  of  the  inlaid  cabinets 
and,  returning  to  her,  handed  her  a  small  jade  god,  beau- 
tifully carved. 

"This  old  person,"  he  told  her,  as  she  took  it  and  held 
it  under  the  lampshade  to  inspect  it,  "is  a  Chinese  devil- 


SHARROW  171 

god.  It  seems,  under  the  circumstances  an  appropriate 
gift  from  me  to  you " 

' '  Thanks. ' '  She  unfastened  a  little  gold  chain  from  her 
neck  and  slipped  it  through  a  hole  in  the  carving  in  the 
infinitesimal  monster's  anatomy.  "I  will  wear  him  al- 
ways. And  if  ever  I  decide  to  break  our — partnership,  I 
will  give  him  back  to  you. ' ' 

They  shook  hands  gravely  and  parted,  the  old  man 
standing  for  some  time  where  she  had  left  him,  his  face 
thoughtful. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

MAGGIE  PENROSE  had  agreed  without  demur  to  Lord  Shar- 
row  's  classifying  their  pact  as  an  unholy  one,  but  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  it  was  one  which  could  have  been  told  to  anyone 
and  received  approval. 

It  was  simply  this.  His  great-uncle  disapproving  his 
marriage  with  Miss  Wymondham,  Sandy  was  to  put  it  off 
for  one  year,  thus  securing  for  his  young  brother  the  educa- 
tional advantages  he  craved  for  him. 

It  was  bribery,  but  bribery  that  sounded  perfectly  justi- 
fiable, and  as  such  Sandy  was  bound  to  accept  it. 

"You  will  promise,  sir,  to  let  us  marry,  if  I  wish,  one 
year  from  to-day,  and — to  send  Syd  to  Eton  and  Oxford?" 
the  young  man  said  when  his  great-uncle  had  confirmed 
Miss  Penrose's  interpretation  of  his  intentions. 

"I  will.  If,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  you  and  Miss  Wy- 
mondham still  wish  to  marry,  I  will  settle  on  you  the  five 
hundred  a  year  you  are  now  having  as  an  allowance.  You 
may  do  what  you  like  with  it,  and  your  brother's  education 
will  continue  to  be  my  affair." 

"You  will  promise?" 

It  was  about  eleven  or'clock,  and  the  two  men  sat  in  Lord 
Sharrow's  sitting-room.  The  sunlight,  pale  but  beautiful, 
streamed  in  over  the  carved  white  woodwork,  and  brought 
into  unwonted  distinctness  the  dark  old  pictures  let  into 
the  panels.  Sandy  stood  thinking  by  one  of  the  win- 
dows, his  big  shoulders  nearly  shutting  out  the  light 
from  it. 

172 


SHARROW  173 

It  seemed  quite  reasonable ;  to  his  bodily  ears  it  sounded 
an  offer  such  as  no  young  man  would  be  justified  in  refus- 
ing ;  it  was  more  than  fair — it  was  even  kind,  for  there  was 
no  reason  why  the  old  man  should  undertake  Syd's  educa- 
tion, a  thing  he  had  never  suggested  before.  And  yet — 
Sandy  hesitated,  as  one  hesitates  on  a  dark  staircase,  feel- 
ing for  a  step  that  is  not  there. 

' '  I  don 't  see  why  you  should — dislike  her  less  in  a  year 's 
time  than  you  do  now, ' '  he  said,  presently,  in  a  hesitating 
voice. 

' '  Then  you  are  a  very  ungallant  lover !  Could  I  not  be 
vanquished  by  a  closer  acquaintance  ?  Could  not  her  mani- 
fold virtues " 

"No,  sir."  Sandy  wheeled  round,  and  faced  him.  "I 
don't  think  you  could.  I  know  I  couldn't,  if  I  had  hated 
a  family,  root  and  branch,  for  sixty  years.  And  I  am  sure 
you  couldn't.  That  is  why  I  don't  accept  your  offer, 
which  is,  of  course,  a  most  generous  one,  at  once.  It — it 
sounds  all  right,  but — I  am  not  quite  sure.  There  seems 
to  be  something  I  don't  yet  quite  get  at." 

His  great-uncle  loved  him  very  much  at  that  moment, 
but  he  did  not  say  so. 

Instead,  he  asked  with  great  suavity,  "And,  may  I  ask, 
if  you  do  not  accept  my  generous  offer,  because  of  this 
black  something  which  you  cannot  quite  get  at,  how  do  you 
intend  to  live?" 

"I  could  live  all  right,  sir.  I  have  a  hundred  a  year  of 
my  own,  and  I  own  the  house  in  Guelph  Square.  And — I 
could  work.  But — you  have  me  on  the  hip  about  Syd. 
There's  the  truth." 

Eventually,  after  a  day's  reflection,  during  which  the 
astute  Maggie  persuaded  the  old  man  to  refrain  from  say- 
ing a  word  to  him  on  the  matter,  Sandy  accepted  his 
great-uncle's  offer,  and  a  few  days  later  returned  to 
Cambridge,  an  engaged  man,  for  Viola  accepted  him  with- 


174  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

out  a  moment's  hesitation,  and  James  Wymondham  shook 
him  by  the  hand,  and  told  him  that  he  would  be  glad  to 
give  him  his  little  girl  when  the  time  came. 

"The  time  will  come  in  less  than  a  year,  sir — four  days 
less  than  three  hundred  and  sixty-five.  Oh,  Vi!" 

They  were  very  happy,  the  tall  ugly  young  man  and  his 
beautiful  little  sweetheart.  No  unwise  stipulations  about 
secrecy  were  made  by  Lord  Sharrow,  so  the  congratulations 
that  they  received  from  gentle  and  simple  were  many,  and 
served  to  consolidate  what  still  seemed  to  Sandy  like  a 
dream  of  impossible  bliss. 

Old  Dingle  had,  it  transpired,  seen  in  them  one  day, 
years  ago,  a  future  couple! 

"You  were  holding  her  on  your  horse,  Roderick  Dhu, 
and  she  wore  a  pink  frock,  with  'er  'air  all  round  'er  face, 
and  I  said  to  Sally — didn  't  I,  my  girl  ? — '  there 's  the  future 
Mrs.  Sandy!'" 

"You  did,  indeed,  Father.  Now,  Miss  Viola,  just  another 
teeny  drop  of  the  wine — I  made  it  myself,  it  couldn't  hurt 
a  baby." 

Wonderful  dream-days,  never  to  be  forgotten.  Never  to 
be  forgotten,  too,  the  lovers  told  each  other,  was  Miss 
Penrose's  sympathy  and  kindness. 

"If  it  hadn't  been  for  her  the  fat  would  have  been  in 
the  fire  now, ' '  Sandy  said,  laughing,  but  serious-eyed.  ' '  In 
fact,  Miss  Penrose,  we  owe  it  all  to  you." 

Maggie  Penrose  did  not  answer  for  a  moment.  Sandy  and 
Viola  were  walking  hand  in  hand,  like  two  children,  and 
she  was  on  Viola's  other  side. 

' '  I  didn 't  make  you  love  each  other, ' '  she  said,  presently, 
clearing  her  throat. 

"No.    God  did  that" 

Viola  spoke  quite  simply,  as  parsons'  well-brought-up 
daughters  used,  but  the  governess  started.  She  was  a  trai- 
tor, but  not  yet  an  altogether  hardened  one,  and  she  had 


SHARROW  175 

been  taught  to  believe  in  the  God  to  whom  of  late  she  had 
hardly  given  a  thought. 

And  then,  as  she  invented  some  excuse,  and  hurried 
back  to  the  house,  she  told  herself  hotly  that  as  yet 
she  had  done  nothing  to  hurt  the  lovers.  "I  can  just  clear 
out,  and  the  old  man  will  have  to  keep  his  word.  No  one 
else  will  ever — 'do  it' — if  I  don't.  And  I  won't.  No,  1 
won't.  He'd  never  look  at  me,  anyhow,  and  now  he  does 
like  me,  at  least. ' ' 

But  that  evening  Sandy  listened  while  she  played,  the 
little  green  god  gleaming  on  her  white  neck,  and  she  fell  a 
degree  deeper  in  love  with  him. 

She  went  to  bed  declaring  to  herself  that  she  did  not  care 
if  he  never  married  her — that  she  knew  he  never  would  do 
that — but  that  she  might  manage  to  catch  a  certain  kind  of 
love  from  him  on  the  rebound.  And  she  told  herself  that 
she  would  "do  it." 

Even  now  she  was  not  sure  what  it  was  with  which  she 
had  charged  herself.  She  had  told  Lord  Sharrow  that  in 
the  year  granted  to  her  she  would  manage  to  break  the  en- 
gagement, and  definitely  prevent  the  marriage  from  ever 
taking  place,  but  she  had  no  distinct  plan.  She  was  one  of 
those  who  trust  to  luck,  and  to  whom  a  year  seems  an  eter- 
nity. 

And  in  the  loneliness  that  followed  Sandy's  return  to 
Cambridge,  the  interminable  length  of  each  day,  as  it 
dragged  by,  strengthened  the  girl  in  her  resolve. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

MRS.  SHABBOW  and  Syd  and  his  governess  stayed  on  and 
on  at  Sharrow.  The  elder  woman  liked  being  there,  for  it 
enhanced  her  boy's  importance  in  her  own  eyes,  and,  as 
she  believed,  in  those  of  other  people. 

Syd,  a  most  amiable  child,  enjoyed  the  country  life,  and 
during  the  next  two  months  he  developed  very  satisfactor- 
ily. His  thin  legs  and  arms  hardened,  his  delicate  face 
grew  broader  and  less  girlish,  and  the  color  in  them  took 
on  a  more  boyish  brown. 

He  learned  to  ride,  and  to  Lord  Sharrow 's  surprise — for 
the  old  man  had  hitherto  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that 
he  regarded  the  boy  rather  as  a  milksop — showed  a  real 
talent  for  the  management  of  horses. 

"Sits  like  a  Centaur,  by  Jove,"  the  old  man  declared 
one  day  shortly  before  the  Easter  holidays,  when  he,  driv- 
ing back  from  White  Shirley,  had  chanced  to  see  the  boy 
take  a  rather  dangerous  fence.  "Looks  nearly  as  well  as 
Keith.  H'm — he  must  have  a  horse." 

It  is  hard  to  say  how  much  of  real  generosity  there  was 
in  the  old  man.  He  was  certainly  free-handed,  but  possi- 
bly there  was  too  much  self-gratification  in  his  gifts  to  have 
them  greatly  counted  unto  him. 

So,  a  fortnight  later,  when  Sandy  came  for  his  holidays, 
his  young  brother  met  him  at  the  station,  mounted  on  a 
magnificent  little  mare. 

The  boy  refused  to  let  his  treasure  be  ridden  home  by  a 
groom,  even  for  the  joy  of  coming  in  the  dog-cart  with 

176 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  177 

Sandy,  and  rode  by  the  dog-cart's  side,  handsome,  proud, 
pirn  pant. 

Sandy  eyed  him  as  they  made  their  way  homewards  in 
the  bright  spring  sunshine.  The  boy  had  grown,  developed, 
become  handsomer  and  less  pretty,  and  he  sat  his  horse 
as  if  he  and  it  were  indeed  one. 

"You've  grown,  kid,"  he  said  gruffly.  "Who  per- 
suaded mother  to  let  you  wear  human  clothes  instead  of 
that  beastly  velvet?" 

In  the  matter  of  Syd's  dress,  although  in  nearly  every 
other  she  had  learned  to  obey  her  big  son,  Antoinette  had 
hitherto  been  immovable. 

"Great-uncle." 

"How'd  he  do  it?" 

Syd  chuckled  as  Stareyes  picked  her  way  daintily 
through  a  puddle.  "By  raising  his  eyebrows." 

"By ?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Every  time  I  came  near  him  he'd  take  a  bit 
of  velvet  between  his  finger  and  thumb  and  look  at  it 
without  saying  a  word,  but  with  his  eyebrows  climbing 
up  to  his  hair.  At  first  she  used  to  ask  him  if  he  didn't 
like  it,  and  to  explain  that  it  was  the  very  best  to  be  got 
at  Marshall  and  Snelgrove's,  but  he  never  answered;  he  just 
wriggled  his  eyebrows — so  at  last  she  took  me  to  town.  We 
had  a  glorious  feed,  Sandear,  and  saw  Toole,  and  she  got 
me  a  lot  of  these  things, ' '  glancing  with  satisfaction  at  his 
serviceable  tweeds. 

Sandy  blessed  his  great-uncle's  eyebrows. 

"And— the  tutor?" 

' '  Oh,  he 's  a  topper.  Got  a  blue  at  Oxford  for  throwing 
the  hammer,  and  knows  no  end.  I  really  like  Greek  now." 

Sandy  nodded  and  remained  in  meditative  silence  for  a 
time.  Presently,  as  they  clattered  over  the  murderous  cob- 
bles of  the  village,  he  shouted  to  his  brother :  ' '  What  about 
Miss  Penrose,  Syd?" 


178  SHARROW  . 

Syd  bowed  with  foreign  grace  to  the  doctor's  old-maid 
sister,  and  then,  in  the  sudden  quiet  of  the  high  road,  an- 
swered the  question. 

"Oh,  she's  all  right.  She  plays  to  me  a  lot  now,  and 
is  working  like  fury  at  her  own  music,  since  she  hasn't 
had  to  bother  with  me." 

"I  see.    But — is  she  staying  on?" 

"I  don't  know,  but  I  should  think  so.  No  one  seems 
to  think  of  her  going.  Besides,  where  should  she  go  ?  She 's 
awfully  poor,  you  know,  and  she  likes  Sharrow. ' ' 

On  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Boniface,  the  tutor,  Maggie  had 
gone  to  her  employer  and  suggested  her  own  immediate 
departure.  Mrs.  Sharrow  demurred,  but  feebly. 

"I  don't  want  to  lose  you,  Miss  Penrose;  I  shall  miss 
you  dreadfully,"  the  French  woman  said.  "But — I  sup- 
pose, now  that  he  has  a  tutor " 

"Exactly.  I  shall  hate  going,  but  it  would  be  a  great 
expense  to  have  us  both." 

Mrs.  Sharrow,  of  course,  then  "consulted"  her  host, 
with  the  result  that  Miss  Penrose 's  valuable  services  were, 
on  behalf  of  her  late  pupil,  musically,  and  on  that  of  her 
late  pupil's  mother,  socially,  retained  for  an  indefinite 
period. 

"She  is  so  easy  to  manage,"  Maggie  said,  later,  to  the 
old  man,  "it  seems  a  shame  to  do  it." 

"A  womanish  and  foolish  argument.  Besides,  everyone 
in  the  world  can  be  managed  in  some  way.  The  trouble 
sometimes  is  to  find  the  way,"  declared  her  ally  with  his 
least  pleasant  grin. 

So,  but  for  the  addition  of  George  Augustus  Boniface, 
a  shy,  powerful  man  with  the  great  love  of  sport  that  Lord 
Sharrow  had  insisted  on  in  Syd's  tutor,  the  little  house- 
party  remained  what  it  had  been  left  by  Sandy  on  his  de- 
parture for  Cambridge. 

Boniface,  whose  shyness  was  constitutional,  was  in  the 


SHARROW  179 

presence  of  ladies  nearly  mute,  and  this  fact,  which  re- 
sulted in  his  more  or  less  complete  absorption  of  his  pupil 's 
time,  was  a  welcome  one  to  the  old  man. 

"No,  Antoinette,"  the  tyrant  declared,  when  the  tutor 
had  been  there  about  a  fortnight,  "I  will  not  send  him 
away  and  get  a  Miss  Nancy  who  would,  by  spending  all 
his  time  with  you  and  Miss  Penrose,  make  of  the  boy  a 
greater  milksop  than  he  already  is.  Boniface  remains." 

"Syd  is  not  a  milksop,"  the  widow  protested,  passion- 
ately. 

"And  I  say  that  he  is." 

Under  the  rouge,  the  purple  of  the  poor  woman's  birth- 
mark darkened  slowly.  ' '  Oh,  if  we  only  were  not  so  poor, ' ' 
she  said,  rapidly,  in  her  own  tongue.  "If  only  my  poor 
Sydney  had  lived!" 

The  old  man  studied  her  face  as  if  her  anger  was  a  spec- 
tacle produced  to  amuse  him. 

' '  If  your  poor  Sydney  had  lived, ' '  he  began,  suavely,  and 
then,  remembering  that  she  was  his  guest  and  bound  to 
be  grateful  to  him,  he  stopped  short,  adding  in  his  gentlest 
voice — that  voice  which  old  Lady  Charlotte  Grantly  had 
qualified  as  smooth — ' '  My  dear  lady,  let  us  not  quarrel.  As 
Sydney  has  gone,  will  you  not  try,  in  the  all-important 
matter  of  bringing  up  your  son,  to  trust  to  my  judg- 
ment?" 

So  she  dried  her  eyes  and  forgave  him,  and  a  little  later 
wrote  to  Bean,  who  was  in  London,  that  she  was  much 
pleased  with  the  new  tutor,  who,  while  perhaps  a  trifle 
gauche,  was  a  fine  manly  young  man,  beautifully  adapted 
to  counteract  in  poor  little  Syd  certain  girlish  character- 
istics that  had  of  late  begun  to  disquiet  his  mother. 

And  Bean,  who  was  that  afternoon  offering  a  hospitable 
cup  of  tea  to  her  old  enemy,  the  mother  of  Lionel  and 
Milton,  read  the  letter  aloud. 

Mrs.  Bilkington,  now  long  since  safe  in  the  folds  of  mat- 


180  SHARROW 

rimony,  and  living  in  some  state  in  Somers  Town,  listened 
with  the  deepest  interest. 

"Always  was  a  little  girlish,  wasn't  'e?"  she  said,  as 
the  letter  was  restored  to  its  envelope.  "Sandy  was  more 
my  style. ' ' 

"Well,  Cook — I  mean  to  say,  Mrs.  Bilkington — that's 
just  according  to  taste,  as  I  always  say.  For  those  who 
like  strength,  of  course,  Mr.  Sandy  is  the  one;  but  Syddy 
is  a  sweet  boy — very  sweet,  and  as  'ansome  as  'ansome. ' ' 

"Yes,  'e  is  that.  Sandy  never  was  for  looks,  was  'e? 
Lor,  I  can  see  him  now,  showing  me  the  portraits  and  ask- 
ing me,  so  anxious,  did  I  think  'e  would  grow  up  to  look 
like  'em?" 

Bean  sighed.  ' '  'E  'as  done,  too.  But  'e 's  a  fine  young 
man,  for  all  that,  Cook.  The  other  day  he  came  to  see  me, 
and — blest,  if  'e  didn't  bring  'is  young  lady's  likeness  to 
show  me!" 

Mrs.  Bilkington 's  interest  was  intense.  "Oh,  now, 
Nurse,  do  tell  me  about  'er.  Pretty,  I  'ope  ? ' ' 

"As  a  picture.  Of  course,  I  always  think  'pretty  is  as 
pretty  does,'  but  then,  'e  says  she's  an  angel;  she  cer- 
tainly looks  like  one." 

Thus  Somers  Town  took  an  interest  in  Sharrow,  for  Mrs. 
Bilkington  returned  to  her  domestic  hearth  full  of  this 
chronicle  of  high  life,  and  with  it  duly  entertaining  her 
friends. 

And  down  in  the  green  country  Sandy  and  Viola  spent 
long  hours  together:  in  the  woods,  where  his  great  fingers 
gathered  thin-stemmed  spring  flowers  for  her,  while  the 
silky  young  leaves  shivered  over  their  heads;  in  the  dull 
rooms  of  ,the  Vicarage  transfigured  for  him  by  her  pres- 
ence, to  the  greatest  beauty ;  in  the  old  house  itself,  where, 
by  the  hour,  he  showed  to  her  its — and  his — treasures,  read 
or  told  her  its  history,  tried  to  reveal  to  her  its  magic. 

In  the  last  point  he  failed  utterly.    She  "admired,"  she 


SHARROW  181 

was  sometimes  even  enthusiastic,  but  she  never  caught  his 
fine  rapture.  It  was  not  in  her,  the  blood  to  which  the 
very  atmosphere  of  the  house  was  as  a  torch  to  kindle, 
and  fire,  and  uplift. 

The  little  alien  governess  was,  had  he  but  known  it,  of 
all  the  people  under  its  roof,  after  his  great-uncle  and 
himself,  the  one  who  came  the  nearest  to  feeling  what  he 
felt. 

Syd,  though  always  ready  to  listen,  to  admire  what  he 
saw  thrilled  his  big  brother,  and  really  loving  his  Frois- 
sart  and  other  tales  of  knightly  deeds,  yet  never  knew  why 
Sandy's  voice  grew  so  strange  at  times  as  he  told  him 
stories  in  the  twilight  of  the  bold  Sharrows.  Any  knight 
was  as  good  to  Syd  as  a  Sharrow,  provided  he  was  brave 
and  romantic,  but  only  a  Sharrow  made  Sandy's  eyes 
glow  in  that  particular  way.  The  younger  boy,  who  was 
an  expressive,  used  to  ask  his  brother,  his  mother,  even 
Viola,  whom  he  adored,  why  this  was. 

Sandy,  who  was  an  inexpressive,  talked  to  no  one,  not 
even  to  his  sweetheart,  about  his  brother's  failure  to  un- 
derstand. Viola  was  Viola,  but — Syd  was  Syd. 

He  was  of  those  whose  loves  and  friendships  never  over- 
lap. Personal  discussion  of  his  dear  ones  with  each  other 
was  an  impossibility  to  him;  each  love,  each  friendship, 
he  kept,  so  to  speak,  in  an  air-tight  compartment;  they 
never  touched  each  other. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

MAGGIE  PENROSE,  at  this  time,  was  living  breathlessly. 
She  had  not  as  yet  raised  a  finger  to  further  the  fulfilling 
of  her  agreement  with  Lord  Sharrow.  Spring  had  come; 
all  the  world  was  green;  she  was  young;  her  own  beauty 
was  to  her  at  that  time  as  a  sharp  weapon  which,  at  any 
moment,  she  might  use. 

In  a  word,  she  felt  her  power  generally,  without  any 
specific  end  in  view.  It  is  a  wonderful  sensation,  this  of 
being  able  to  do  anything — it  comes  but  seldom,  even  to 
the  few  who  ever  experience  it,  and  it  is  a  powerful  intoxi- 
cant. 

What  she  would  have  to  do  to  prevent  Sandy's  mar- 
riage, she  did  not  know,  but  during  the  spring  days  she 
knew  that  when  the  time  came,  she  could  do  it. 

So,  deliberately,  she  drifted.  And,  during  her  period 
of  keen  passivity,  she  saw  circumstances  moulding  them- 
selves to  her  ultimate  end. 

Without  her  taking  one  step  to  secure  it,  Viola's  friend- 
ship began  to  come  her  way.  The  younger  girl,  often  a 
little  bored  by  her  sister's  strenuousness,  liked  the  gov- 
erness, whose  grace  and  beauty  pleased  her,  and  who,  as 
the  Vicar's  younger  daughter  put  it,  never  bullied  her. 

That  Mary  did  bully  her  sister,  there  is  no  denying, 
although  it  was  the  bullying  of  great  devotion.  Mary, 
who  since  her  childhood  had  had  impressed  upon  her  the 
necessity  for  her  replacing,  to  the  best  of  her  ability,  their 
dead  mother,  had  early  developed  a  wisdom  regarding 

182 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  183 

draughts,  shawls,  overshoes,  and  other  such  tiresome  mat- 
ters that  at  times  made  life  a  thing  almost  burdensome  to 
Viola. 

Viola  hated  shawls,  overshoes,  camomile  tea,  and  what, 
generically,  may  be  termed  "fuss."  And  the  robust  Mary, 
who  had  never  had  a  cold  in  her  life,  appeared  to  revel  in 
them  in  her  relation  to  her  sister. 

Viola  was  never  out  of  temper,  never  impatient,  and 
Mary  had  no  suspicion  that  her  attentions  were  irritating; 
but  Viola,  loving  her  sister  deeply,  was  yet,  at  times,  bored 
to  death  by  her. 

And  Maggie  Penrose  was  an  ideal  antidote  to  Mary.  So 
the  two  girls  became  friends,  and,  as  the  fashion  of  the 
day  prescribed,  used  to  practise  duets  together.  This  gave 
them  hours  of  dual  solitude,  in  which  Maggie  learned  to 
know  very  well  the  girl  Sandy  Sharrow  meant  to  marry. 
And  even  while  she  never  mentioned  her  discoveries  to  a 
soul,  while,  even,  with  a  strange  delicacy  she  rarely  put  a 
leading  question  to  the  simpler  girl,  yet  at  the  back  of 
her  brain  was  a  slowly-growing  accumulation  of  knowledge 
regarding  Viola  which  Maggie  knew  would  some  day  be 
of  use  to  her. 

Lord  Sharrow,  who  grew  stronger  with  the  increase  of 
power  in  the  sun's  rays,  used  occasionally  to  come  and  sit 
in  the  drawing-room,  newspaper  in  hand,  during  the  prac- 
tising of  the  duets. 

At  first  his  presence  embarrassed  the  friends,  but  after 
a  while  they  grew  used  to  it,  and  sometimes  quite  forgot 
it. 

On  these  occasion  the  old  man  gleaned,  in  his  turn,  bits 
of  information  that  pleased  him.  He  rarely  mentioned 
Sandy  to  Miss  Penrose,  although  they  played  cribbage 
together  every  afternoon,  but  she  knew  that  his  determina- 
tion against  the  marriage  had  never  faltered. 

He  was,  she  realized,  but  staying  his  hand,  giving  her  a 


184  SHARROW 

chance;  if,  when  he  considered  her  time  ripe,  she  did 
nothing,  he  would  put  her  aside  as  a  worthless  tool  and 
take  the  direction  of  affairs  himself. 

And  she  would  be  obliged  to  go  forth  into  the  world 
again,  begin  a  fresh  struggle  for  her  very  bread,  and  lose 
even  the  occasional  sight  of  Sandy. 

She  was  not  a  born  adventuress,  for  the  excitement  of 
the  hazard  had  no  charm  for  her.  She  was  not  one  of  those 
not  very  unusual  women  who  are  capable  of  enjoying  the 
uncertainty  of  life,  who  can  buy  a  good  meal  with  their 
last  sovereign,  and  laugh  as  they  do  it.  She  liked  security 
and  good  food,  and  a  good  bed,  and — here  all  the  good 
things  of  life  were  hers.  She  would  not  lose  them,  even 
though  she  could  never  win  Sandy's  love,  but — the  time 
had  not  yet  come  when  she  must  act.  So  spring  came  to 
its  full  beauty  and  she  had  done  nothing  but  allow  Viola 
to  make  a  friend  of  her,  and  to  trust  her. 

One  morning  when  Sandy  and  Viola  and  Syd  had  gone 
for  a  long  ride,  the  summons  she  had  for  days  been  ex- 
pecting came  to  Miss  Penrose  from  Lord  Sharrow. 

The  day  was  very  mild,  so  warm  that  the  old  man  was 
in  the  rose  garden,  walking  gently  about  among  the  glis- 
tening greenery  with  a  plaid  over  his  shoulders. 

"Good  morning,  Miss  Penrose."  They  shook  hands 
politely,  and  she  joined  him  in  his  walk. 

"Isn't  that  wall  beautiful?"  he  began,  pointing  to  the 
south  wall,  which,  indeed,  was  a  marvel  of  ripe  stone, 
arabesqued  with  lichens,  stonecrop,  and  other  delicate 
sprouting  things.  "If  only  age  improved  us  humans  as 
its  does  stone.  A  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  that  wall 
was  in  its  newness  an  eyesore.  And  now — look  at  it!" 

He  spoke  sadly.  Sometimes  of  late  she  had  been  on  the 
edge  of  thinking  that  his  cynicism  grew  less,  but  an  occa- 
sional outburst  of  it  had  always  undeceived  her. 

"Stone  walls  don't  think,  for  one  thing,"  she  suggested, 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  185 

as  they  stopped  to  walk  around  a  huge  toad,  who  was  sun- 
ning himself  in  their  route. 

He  glanced  at  her.  "No,  presumably  not.  And  we  do, 
and  thus  wear  out  our  muscles  and  tissue,  you  mean.  I 
daresay.  By  the  way,  that  is  why  I  asked  for  the  honor  of 
your  society  for  a  little  while  this  morning.  What  do  you 
think  about  my  great-nephew?" 

His  voice  changed  sharply  at  the  last  words,  but  it  was 
not  its  business-like  tone  that  caused  her  to  flush  angrily 
and  look  away.  It  was  because  never  once  since  the  be- 
ginning of  their  acquaintance,  during  either  their  days  of 
ceremoniousness,  their  strange  little  friendship,  or  their 
conspiracy,  had  he  spoken  to  her  of  Sandy  otherwise  than 
as  "my  great-nephew." 

He  had  often  been  sarcastic  and  disagreeable  to  her, 
more  than  once  he  had  been  rude  (although  he  invariably 
apologized  for  such  a  lapse),  but  none  of  his  words  ever 
annoyed  her  so  much  as  the  two,  "my  great-nephew." 
They  seemed  to  put  between  her  and  him  a  barrier  of  caste, 
and  he,  watching  her  sideways,  misunderstood. 

"You  think  I  am  hurrying  you.  You  are  wrong.  This 
is  April,  so  you  have  only  eight  months  in  which " 

"But  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  I  am  going  to  do  it," 
she  burst  out,  giving  way  to  the  temper  that  she  as  a  rule 
kept  battened  down  by  her  will.  "I  rather  like  Viola." 

It  was  an  absurd  speech  as  well  as  an  injudicious 
one,  and  she  knew  it,  but  for  the  moment  she  did  not 
care. 

A  gardener  was  trimming  a  high  espalier  rose  at  the  far 
end  of  the  garden,  and  the  clipping  sound  of  his  shears 
rang  out  rhythmically.  The  old  man  glanced  at  the  green 
god. 

"Ah!    You  rather  like  'Viola'!" 

She  whirled  around.  "Yes,  Lord  Sharrow,  and  you 
needn't  emphasize  the  name.  She  calls  me  Maggie,  and 


186  SHARROW 

I  call  her  Viola,  and  I  really  can't  see  that  it  is  anything 
to  you. ' ' 

He  laughed,  his  dark  teeth  showing  behind  his  discol- 
ored lips,  his  red-edged  old  eyes  crinkling  with  amuse- 
ment. 

"I  see.  Very  well,  then,  my  dear  Miss  Penrose,  you  and 
Viola  are  friends.  Is  that  why  you  are  going  to  allow 
Sandy  to  marry  her  ?  I  thought  you  loved  him  yourself. ' ' 

The  gardener  was  whistling  now,  a  popular  waltz.  He 
was  a  young  man,  and  fond  of  music. 

Suddenly  the  girl's  eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  she  felt 
weak  all  over,  as  though  she  were  going  to  faint. 

"I  do,  Lord  Sharrow,  indeed  I  do.  And  that  is  why  I 
sometimes  think  I  had  better  not  interfere " 

It  was  made  on  pure  impulse,  the  speech,  for  she  had 
never  seriously  contemplated  staying  her  hand,  but  its 
effect  was  electrical. 

For  ten  minutes  the  old  man  talked,  brooking  no  inter- 
ruption. He  spoke  quietly,  rapidly,  with  a  choice  of 
words  that  struck  her  as  remarkable,  with  a  force  of  argu- 
ment that  would  have  convinced  her  had  she  not  already 
been  convinced. 

And,  finally,  he  clinched  things  by  a  compliment. 

"You  have  told  me  that  you  are  poor,"  he  said,  "and 
I  am  rich.  It  would  be  easy  for  me  to  offer  you  a  heavy 
bribe.  But — your  being  what  you  are,  closes  my  mouth 
in  that  respect.  It  would  be  to  insult  you.  So  do  not  use 
my  powerlessness  against  me." 

That  evening  Miss  Penrose  made  the  first  move  in  her 
game. 

When  Sandy,  having  taken  Viola  home  after  luncheon 
and  stayed  to  tea,  came  into  the  Small  Hall,  his  clothes 
were  glistening  with  drops  of  water.  It  had  come  on  to 
rain,  and  he  was  wet  and  cold. 

"No  tea  going?"  he  asked. 


S  H  A  E  R  0  W  187 

"Yes,  but — have  a  brandy  and  soda  instead;  you  will 
take  cold,  you  are  so  wet." 

*' Brandy  and  soda?"  He  hesitated,  and  she  rang  the 
bell. 

"Yes.  'Why  not?" 

He  did  not  answer ;  she  gave  the  order  when  the  servant 
came  in,  and  Sandy  sat  down  by  the  fire,  enveloped  with 
peaty  steam  from  his  drying  tweeds,  a  stiff  brandy  and 
soda  at  his  elbow. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

VIOLA  WYMONDHAM  could  never  recall  the  occasion  on 
which  she  first  knew  that  Sandy  had  a  fondness  for  brandy. 

Later,  on  looking  back  and  probing  her  memory,  it 
seemed  to  her  that  she  had  always  known  it,  yet  she  knew 
that  could  not  be.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  Maggie 
Penrose  who  hinted  at  it  as  a  kind  of  heritage,  and  in  this 
the  ex-governess  told  the  strict  truth,  as  fortune  by  some 
freak  granted  her  the  doing  on  many  occasions  as  she  pur- 
sued her  end. 

Over  and  over  again  it  happened  that  the  truth  thus 
turned  itself  to  a  weapon  in  her  hand,  and  this  caused  a 
feeling  almost  of  righteousness  to  grow  up  within  her. 

If  she  had  been  forced  to  many  lies,  her  own  iniquity 
could  not  but  have  become  clear  to  her,  and  this,  for  she 
needed  her  own  approbation,  would  have  hampered  her 
to  a  certain  extent. 

But  as  she  was  telling  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time 
only  the  pure  truth,  how  could  it  be  that  she  was  doing 
wrong?  And  Sandy  did  like  brandy. 

This  he  had  found  out  when  he  was  a  child,  and  his 
great-uncle  had  given  him  bits  of  sugar  dipped  in  it.  As 
a  youth  of  nineteen  he  had  once  drunk  himself  into  a 
heavy  sleep,  but  after  a  horror-stricken  morning  in  which 
he  beheld  himself  another  such  as  his  great-uncle,  he  had 
taken  a  vow  not  to  touch  the  stuff  for  a  year. 

He  had  kept  his  vow,  but  at  the  end  of  the  year,  to  try 
his  strength,  he  bought  a  bottle  of  Three  Stars,  and,  keep- 

188 


SHARROW  189 

ing  it  in  a  cupboard,  took  a  glass  every  afternoon.  He 
never  took  more  than  one  glass,  and  thus,  having  proved 
himself  his  own  master,  allowed  himself  the  occasional  joy 
of  a  drink. 

For  it  was  to  him,  unfortunately,  a  real  joy.  He  did 
not  bolt  the  brandy,  nor  drown  it  with  a  careless  spurt 
of  syphon  water.  With  the  connoisseur's  eye  he  measured 
it  into  a  glass,  and  with  deep  attention  added  the  desired 
exact  amount — and  it  was  an  infinitesimal  one — of  soda. 
Then  he  sat  down  in  a  comfortable  chair,  and  very  slowly, 
luxuriously,  sipped,  holding  each  mouthful  in  his  mouth, 
moving  his  tongue  in  it  as  a  tired  man  moves  in  his  bath, 
and  then  letting  it  slide  slowly  down  his  rapturous  throat. 

And  this  was  his  only  secret.  Even  Ben  Frith  had  no 
idea  of  his  friend's  danger.  To  Sandy  himself  it  seemed 
no  danger,  because  he  could  check  his  desire  for  a  second 
glass.  He  honestly  believed  that  he  was  safe,  and,  in  the 
arrogance  of  his  youth,  looked  down  on  his  great-uncle 
for  his  lack  of  self-control. 

Only  three  times  in  his  life  had  he  taken  what  he  him- 
self admitted  to  be  "too  much."  Once,  on  the  occasion 
already  referred  to;  once,  when  Syd  had  pneumonia  and 
he,  Sandy,  had  sat  up  with  him  for  three  nights  and  could 
find  no  rest  in  his  anxiety,  and  the  evening  of  the  day  when 
he  had  rushed  in  a  rage  away  from  Sharrow  after  quar- 
reling with  his  great-uncle.  This  last  time  the  brandy  had 
been  the  accompaniment  of  other  pain-deadeners,  and  he 
had  awakened  in  a  place  the  memory  of  which  always 
caused  him  a  sharp  twinge  of  pain. 

And  now,  in  his  great  happiness,  he  found  brandy-and- 
soda  to  be  met  with  in  greater  frequency  than  ever  be- 
fore at  Sharrow. 

Like  many  men  who  nearly  or  quite  deserve  the  name 
of  drunkard,  Lord  Sharrow  disliked  seeing  spirits  about 
his  house.  No  whiskey  ever  came  in  with  the  tea  at  Shar- 


190  SHAREOW 

row,  and  only  wines  were  served  with  the  meals.  So  Sandy 
observed  with  surprise  that  this  order  of  things  had 
changed. 

One  day  he  was  told  why.  It  appeared  that  the  doctor 
had  ordered  Miss  Penrose  to  drink  a  glass  of  weak  brandy 
and  soda  twice  a  day,  as  a  tonic. 

"Old  Gill  ordering  'speerits'  to  a  patient?  By  Jove, 
that  is  a  change!  Miss  Jeannie  will  be  murdering  him." 

"Oh;  it  wasn't  Dr.  Gill,"  interposed  Maggie,  hastily. 
"I  saw  my  own  doctor  when  I  went  to  London  the  other 
day " 

Sandy,  his  mustache  still  wet  with  brandy,  eyed  her 
benevolently.  "I  am  so  sorry  you  have  been  seedy,"  he 
said.  "When  were  you  in  town?" 

She  bit  her  lip,  furious  with  herself,  for  she  had  not 
been  to  town  at  all.  Suppose  he  mentioned  her  visit  to 
Syd,  or  to  his  mother. 

But  Sandy,  to  whom  she  and  her  doings  were  of  the 
most  sublime  indifference,  never  gave  the  matter  another 
thought.  For  the  moment  he  was  happy. 

Although  he  was  a  particularly  big,  strong  man,  and 
as  healthy  as  a  man  could  be,  he  was  peculiar  in  that  even 
one  drop  of  spirit  went  to  his  head.  It  made  him  not 
quarrelsome  or  sombre,  but  it  rocked  him  in  exquisite  bliss ; 
two  swallows  of  brandy  made  him  love  all  the  world.  Four 
glasses  did  not  make  him  stagger  or  speak  indistinctly. 

Maggie  watched  him  closely.  She  meant  to  ruin  what  he 
considered  his  happiness,  but  she  loved  him  and  had  no 
wish  to  make  a  drunkard  of  him. 

Once  he  refused  to  have  "some  of  the  medicine,"  as 
she  put  it,  nipping  gingerly  at  her  own  glass  of  very  weak 
spirits  and  water,  which  she  detested. 

' '  No — Viola  doesn  't  like  me  to, ' '  he  said,  laughing.  ' '  She 
thinks  it  wicked,  bless  her!" 

Maggie  said  nothing,  but  she  smiled. 


SHARROW  191 

Now  Sandy  could  be  like  a  stone  image  for  immobility 
if  he  thought  anyone  was  trying  to  control  him.  But  he 
was  as  far  from  suspecting  the  girl  whom  he  believed  to 
have  befriended  him  as  he  was  from  suspecting  Viola  her- 
self, and  her  smile,  because  she  was  a  pretty  woman  and 
he  a  very  young  man,  piqued  him. 

Moreover,  the  day  was  cold,  and  an  east  wind  banged 
at  the  window  and  reminded  him  that  his  fingers  had  been 
chilled  as  he  rode  home  from  a  very  bad  day's  hunting. 

"One  of  the  last  runs  we  shall  get,  too,"  he  grumbled. 
"A  disgusting  day " 

"Why  not  change  your  mind,  then?" 

He  did,  and  was  soon  restored  to  a  balmy  humor  in 
which  no  east  wind  raged. 

When  the  young  man  went  back  to  Cambridge  for  his 
last  term,  his  great-uncle  sent  with  him,  as  a  gift,  several 
cases  of  wine. 

"But  I  rarely  touch  wine,  sir,"  Sandy  said,  when  the 
intention  was  made  known  to  him.  "Don't  like  it." 

' '  Ah !  Very  well,  I  '11  have  Brownlow  put  in  some  of  the 
old  cognac " 

There  was  a  short  pause,  and  then  Sandy  said  shortly: 
"Thank  you,  sir." 

Then  he  went,  and  once  more  dulness  reigned  at  Shar- 
row. 

To  Maggie  it  was  almost  intolerable,  for  she  had  seen 
so  much  of  Sandy  during  the  short  holiday  that  she  missed 
him  at  every  turn.  He  had  grown  older,  too,  changing 
more  rapidly  than  the  short  lapse  of  time  would  seem  to 
explain,  since  the  coming  of  the  new  year,  and  her  com- 
panionship had  been  valued  by  him.  He  believed  her  to 
be  a  good  sort,  and  told  her  so  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
and  she  knew  that  he  still  thought  himself  to  have  been 
a  bounder  in  kissing  her. 

And  she,  violently  in  love  with  him,  had,  although  of  ne- 


192  SHARROW 

cessity  passing  hours  of  something  approaching  torture, 
when  she  knew  him  to  be  with  Viola,  or  when  he  talked  to 
her  of  his  future,  been  very  happy. 

His  trust  and  friendship  were,  morals  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  as  dear  to  her  as  if  she  had  fully  deserved 
them,  and  she  had  made  the  very  utmost  of  them  both. 

And  Sandy,  for  his  part,  had,  if  not  forgotten  his  sus- 
picions of  what  she  had  felt  for  him,  at  least  put  them 
aside  long  since  as  absurd.  If  she  had  had  any  nonsense 
in  her  head  about  him,  he  argued,  would  she  have  come  to 
the  rescue  as  she  did  about  Viola?  And  would  she  be  so 
fond  of  Viola  as  she  undoubtedly  was  ? 

The  Easter  holidays,  then,  passed  most  happily  for  all 
at  Sharrow,  and  when  Sandy  had  gone  back  to  the  'Varsity 
Mrs.  Sharrow,  Syd,  Mr.  Boniface,  and  Miss  Penrose  re- 
turned to  the  quiet  of  Guelph  Square. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

"Vi,  darling,  can't  you  tell  me?" 

"Can't  I  tell  you  what?" 

"What  it  is  that  is  troubling  you."  The  elder  girl's 
voice  was  very  gentle  as  she  spoke,  but  Viola  did  not 
answer. 

They  were  sitting  on  a  pile  of  new-mown  hay  in  an 
upland  meadow  not  far  from  Broekett  Wood.  Their 
walk  had  been  long,  but  Viola  had  of  late  taken  to  long 
walks.  In  the  bright  sunlight  they  made  a  pretty  picture, 
for  Viola  sat  under  a  pink  silk  umbrella — not  a  sunshade, 
but  a  huge,  old  umbrella  that  had  been  a  caprice  of  her 
mother's  years  and  years  before — and  Mary  wore  a  cot- 
ton frock  of  a  pleasant  cool  green,  trimmed  with  straps 
of  white  pique. 

On  the  ground  under  them  lay  a  letter,  closely  written 
in  a  small  hand.  It  was  from  Sandy,  Mary  knew,  and 
yet  she  had  been  told  only  that  Syd  was  better  and  that 
they  were  coming  home  in  ten  days'  time. 

Mary  Wymondham  hated  asking  questions,  and  to  put 
unwelcome  ones,  which  would  be  received  as  an  intrusion, 
caused  her  almost  physical  pain. 

But,  she  asked  herself  sadly,  was  she  not  Vi's  Little 
Mother  ?  She  must  try  to  help  her  darling. 

So  presently  she  began  again. 

"If  it's  only  that  poor  little  Syd's  illness  prevented 
Sandy's  coming,  I  could  understand,  dearest — but  is  it? 
He  writes  nearly  every  day ;  you  know,  how  miserable  he  is 

193 


194  SHAEROW 

to  be  separated  from  you — it  isn't  his  fault  in  the  least — 
and  yet,  you  seem  to  me  to  be — nearly  angry  with  him. ' ' 

Viola  turned  away  her  head. 

' '  I  am  angry, ' '  she  declared,  fiercely.  ' '  I — I  hate  him ! ' ' 

Mary  sighed.  "No,  you  don't,  Vi.  You  are  just  being 
a  goose  now.  He  hasn't  done  a  thing  to  make  you  hate 
him,  and  you  are  unjust  and  unkind  to  him." 

Viola  then  burst  into  tears,  and  Mary  flung  both  arms 
around  her  and  held  her  close,  murmuring  all  sorts  of 
silly,  charming  pet  names  and  words  of  comfort  into  her 
ears. 

But  the  elder  girl  was  alarmed;  even  allowing  for  her 
sister's  nervous  exaggeration  of  trifles,  and  her  childish 
impatience  of  events,  Mary  knew  that  something  must  be 
wrong. 

However,  she  waited,  and  presently  Viola  blew  her  nose 
on  her  sister's  handkerchief,  pushed  her  curly  hair  out 
of  her  eyes,  and  sat  up. 

"Mary,"  she  said,  "Sandy  drinks." 

Mary  started.  ' '  No,  no,  it  isn  't  true.  It  can 't  be !  Who 
told  you?" 

"Well,  I  know  he  takes  brandy.  I  saw  him  once,  and 
he  told  me  that — that  he  loves  it.  Three  times  he  has  been 
drunk." 

"Viola!  You  can't  mean  what  you're  saying!  When 
did  you  ever  see  Sandy  Sharrow  drunk?"  Mary  rose  and 
stood  looking  down,  her  dark  eyes  afire  with  indignation. 
"I  don't  believe  it." 

"I  didn't  say  I  had  seen  him  drunk.  He  told  me  him- 
self that  he  had  been 

Mary  knelt  suddenly  in  the  sweet,  warm  hay.  "Vi, 
dear,  if  poor  Sandy  confessed  that  to  you — his  fault — if 
he  really  told  you,  whom  he  loves  so,  that  he  was — drunk, 
don't  you  see  that  you  ought  never,  never  to  tell  a  soul? 
Not  even  me  ? " 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  195 

"There's  no  harm  in  my  telling  you.  You  are  my 
sister. ' ' 

"I  know,  I  know — of  course,  I  am  your  sister.  But  he 
is  your  lover,  dading — he's  going  to  be  your  husband — 
oh,  Vi!" 

There  was  a  pause,  and  then,  because  Viola  was  fright- 
ened, and  because  she  was  weak,  she  took  from  her  pocket 
a  second  letter. 

"I'll  read  you  what  Maggie  says,"  she  began,  but  Mary 
interrupted  her. 

"You  haven't  told  her?  Oh,  Viola,  I  don't  see  how 
you  could.  Father  would  die  if  he  knew ! ' ' 

Vi  gave  a  little  sob. 

"Of  course,  I  didn't  tell  Maggie.  It  was  she  who  warned 
me,  and  asked  me  to  help  him.  You  see,  Mary,  she  noticed 
it  at  Easter.  And  she  was  so  nice  about  it,  and  made  me 
promise  never  to  tell  him.  She  said  I  might  influence 
him " 

"I've  seen  Maggie  Penrose  drink  brandy  herself," 
snapped  Mary,  fiercely.  "I  loathe  the  woman,  and  I  dis- 
trust her.  Well?  And  then  you  wrote  to  her?" 

"She  drank  it  by  the  doctor's  orders.  No,  I  didn't 
write.  But  last  week  she  wrote  me  this.  Let  me  see.  'I 
am  so  glad  your  cold  is ' — no,  that 's  not  it.  '  Syd  is  really 
better,  and  I  get  out  every  day  for  an  hour' — no — oh,  yes, 
here  it  is.  'I  hope,  Viola  dear,  that  you  don't  forget  to 
remind  Sandy  sometimes  about  that  of  which  we  know. 
I  have  given  up  my  b.  and  s.,  because  it  seemed  to  make 
him  want  some ;  but,  of  course,  I  can 't  mention  it  to  him. 
And  I  have  been  thinking  for  a  long  time  over  something 
that  happened  last  week,  and  whether  I  ought  to  tell  you. 
I  hate  to,  for  it  will  hurt  you,  but  I  feel  that  for  both  your 
sakes  I  ought  to.'  ' 

"Oh,  do  stop,  Vi!  I  can't  listen.  Tell  me  what  it  is, 
can't  you,  instead  of  reading  it?" 


196  SHARROW 

And  so,  sitting  under  the  rose-colored  umbrella,  Viola 
told  her. 

Sandy  had  taken  too  much  spirits  one  night  when  he 
was  out,  and  Maggie,  hearing  him  try  to  open  the  door 
with  his  latch-key,  had  let  him  in. 

"He  did  not  stumble,  she  says,"  Viola  explained,  her 
lip  curling  fastidiously,  "but  he  could  not  speak,  and  was 
as  white  as  a  ghost,  and  went  straight  to  the  library,  and 
went  to  sleep  on  the  sofa  and  slept  for  thirteen  hours. ' ' 

Mary  rose  again,  too  indignant  to  sit  still,  her  dark 
cheeks  crimson.  ' '  If  he  didn  't  stumble,  and  didn  't  speak, ' ' 
she  said,  sharply,  "how  did  Maggie  Penrose  know  he  was 
drunk?  Being  pale  is  no  sign — nor  is  sleeping  thirteen 
hours." 

"But  Maggie  says -" 

"Viola  Wymondham,  you  don't  even  try  not  to  believe 
this  awful  thing.  I  won't  believe  it,  and  you  just  let  your- 
self. I  shall  ask  Sandy  myself  the  very  minute  he  comes. 
Then  we  shall  see." 

She  set  her  mouth  firmly.  She  had  always  liked  Sandy 
and  she  meant  to  stand  by  him. 

But  Viola  only  sighed,  and  took  up  Sandy's  letter,  on 
which  a  beautiful  green  grasshopper  was  sunning  him- 
self. 

"I  did  ask  him,"  she  said,  "and  here's  his  answer: 
'You  ask  me  about  the  brandy.  Darling,  I  am  not  a 
drunkard.  Are  you  bothering  your  precious  head  about 
that  ?  I  made  my  confession  to  you  once,  and  now  I  have, 
alas,  to  make  another.  Since  I  saw  you,  I  have  once  had 
too  much  to  drink.  But  I  was  not  drunk,  and  it  was  only 
once.  Forgive  me.'  That's  all  he  says,  but " 

Mary  was  silent  and  looked  very  grave. 

"All  men  drink  a  little,  I  suppose,"  she  began,  hesi- 
tatingly, "but — Sandy  ought  not  to.  Lord  Sharrow's  ex- 
ample ought  to  teach  him  that." 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  197 

Three  days  later,  Syd  being  now  fairly  convalescent 
from  his  fever,  Sandy  came  to  Sharrow. 

After  greeting  his  great-uncle,  who  had  been  to  Paris, 
and  come  back,  having  apparently  renewed  his  youth 
there,  he  went  to  the  Vicarage.  His  mother  had  sent  by 
him  an  invitation  to  Viola  to  come  to  Guelph  Square  for 
a  week. 

"Syd  can't  spare  me  for  long  yet,"  he  declared,  "al- 
though the  dear  old  thing  is  coming  on  famously — he's 
grown  a  foot,  sir — so  mother  hopes  you'll  let  Vi  come.  It's 
very  cool  in  town,  and  there  are  some  good  plays  on. 
Maggie  can  chaperone  us,  and  it  will  be  a  change  for  Vi." 

The  Vicar  agreed  readily  to  the  plan,  and  thus  Sandy 
and  his  love  traveled  up  to  town  early  the  next  morning. 
As  they  left  Victoria  Station,  Sandy  put  up  his  stick  and 
stopped  the  hansom. 

"There — that  island  there,  where  the  old  man  is  stand- 
ing, is  where  I  first  saw  you,  Viola.  I  should  like,"  he 
added,  her  hand  in  his,  "to  put  up  a  stone  there  with  the 
date  on  it.  Oh,  blessed  day!" 

To  Maggie  Penrose,  shut  up  for  weeks  as  she  had  been 
with  Syd — and  a  very  good  nurse  she  was,  attaching  his 
mother  to  her  very  strongly  by  her  devotion  and  gentle- 
ness— Viola's  visit  came  as  a  rather  unwelcome  inter- 
ruption. 

Syd  had  been  very  ill  "with  typhoid,  and  Sandy  had 
hardly  left  him  for  uncounted  nights  and  days,  and  the 
common  anxiety  of  the  brother  and  the  governess  had 
drawn  them  very  close  together. 

Once  when  Syd  had,  after  hours  of  pain,  fallen  asleep 
with  his  head  on  the  girl's  arm.  Sandy  had  knelt  by  her 
and  held  her  in  his  arms  to  relieve  her  cramped  position. 
His  mother  was  seated  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  the 
doctor  had  been  there  part  of  the  time,  but  it  seemed  to 
Maggie  that  she  and  Sandy  were  alone  in  the  world.  She 


198  SHARROW 

could  feel  his  heart  beat,  and,  as  he  whispered  to  her  now 
and  again,  his  breath  stirred  her  hair. 

She  never  forgot  that  night. 

Often  and  often,  too,  the  hazards  of  turn-about  nursing 
brought  it  to  pass  that  she  and  Sandy  lunched  or  dined 
alone  together,  and  then,  in  the  domestic  intimacy  of  the 
hurried  meal,  she  could  almost  imagine  that  they  were 
married. 

Sometimes  he  brought  her  a  handful  of  flowers,  and 
these  she  carefully  dried  and  kept  in  her  Tennyson — a 
large,  green  volume  he  had  given  her  on  her  birthday. 

To  the  terror-stricken  mother,  the  girl's  quiet,  cool  pres- 
ence was  as  balm,  and  Sandy  himself  grew  really  fond  of 
her  who  was  so  good  to  his  brother  and  so  unthoughtful 
for  herself. 

"You  must  go  to  bed,"  he  said  one  night,  just  before 
the  crisis,  "you  really  must,  or  you'll  be  crocking  up  your- 
self, and  then  where  should  we  be?" 

It  was  after  midnight,  and  they  stood  on  the  landing 
near  the  Angelica  Kaufmann  niche.  Maggie,  who  wore 
a  blue  dressing-gown — for  she  had  been  on  duty  in  the 
sick  room  for  the  past  three  hours — was  very  tired.  Her 
eyes  were  heavy,  her  face  pale,  but  she  looked  unusually 
pretty. 

"I'll  lie  down  on  the  sofa  in  the  library." 

"You'll  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  You  are  going  to  bed. 
Come  along — up  you  go." 

He  laid  a  brotherly  arm  round  her,  and  pushed  her 
towards  the  stairs. 

"I'd  far  rather " 

"Now,  look  here,  Maggie,"  he  insisted,  kindly,  "you 
are  done  up,  and  you  must  rest.  There's  a  dear. 
Come " 

"I — am — so — tired,"  she  murmured,  half  because  she 
felt  faint,  half  because  his  arm  was  around  her. 


S  H  A  E  E  0  W  201 

visit  to  Guelph  Square,  Viola  had  seen  neither  brandy  nor 
signs  of  brandy  in  her  lover.  They  had  gone  to  a  play, 
and  supped  afterwards  at  a  very  resplendent  new  hotel; 
they  had  spent  an  afternoon  at  the  National  Gallery,  and 
another  at  the  Zoo.  And  Sandy  had  been  delightful. 

Viola  would  have  been  perfectly  happy  but  for  the  re- 
minder given  her  every  day,  by  her  sister,  of  the  skeleton 
in  poor  Sandy's  cupboard,  and  this  cupboard  was,  to  its 
supposed  owner,  as  empty  of  a  skeleton  as  the  Vicar's  own. 

Sandy,  having  made  the  confession,  which  he  believed  it 
to  be  his  duty  to  make,  to  his  sweetheart,  stopped  his  occa- 
sional glass  of  brandy  and  forgot  all  about  it. 

Wine,  he  detested;  whiskey,  he  mildly  disliked;  and 
now  that  he  had,  after  Viola's  timid  inquiry  after  her  re- 
ceipt of  Maggie's  letter,  not  tasted  a  drop  of  brandy,  he 
felt  as  sure  of  himself  as  if  he  had  never  tasted  it  in  his 
life. 

"But  Mary  does  torment  you,  darling.  Is  she  worry- 
ing you  about  silly  little  parish  doings?  If  she  is,  I'll 
write  and  stop  it." 

Viola  drew  back  with  a  little  tremor.  "Oh,  no,  Sandy, 
you  mustn't  write  to  her.  She  hasn't  mentioned  parish 
affairs — except  that  Julia  Mitten  has  twins,  and  that 
isn't  her  fault.  Oh,  no,  Sandy.  You  mustn't  be  cross 
with  Mary.  She  is  so  good,  and — she  is  so  fond  of  you. 

You  don't  know  how  she  likes  you,  and "  Viola  bit 

her  lips ;  she  had  nearly  betrayed  the  fact  that  Mary  stood 
up  for  him,  and  that,  of  course,  would  have  led  to  ques- 
tions, and  been  fatal. 

Viola  was  loyal,  and  she  had  promised  Maggie  never 
to  tell  Sandy  what  Maggie  had  thought  it  her  duty  to  tell 
about  him.  But  she  loved  Mary  more  than  all  the  Maggies 
in  the  world,  even  though  Mary  did  ' '  fuss, ' '  and  she  could 
not  let  Sandy  think  hardly  of  her  sister. 

"It's — it's  just  a  little  worry  of  Mary's  own,"  she  fal- 


202  SHARROW 

tered,  lying  very  badly,  but  as  best  she  could,  to  protect 
the  two  girls.  And  Sandy  believed  her,  of  course. 

Then  in  came  Maggie,  delightfully  pretty  in  lilac-col- 
ored muslin,  with  a  black  velvet  ribbon  around  her  throat, 
and  the  three  began  making  plans  for  the  day. 

"You  are  pale,  Sandy,"  Maggie  remarked,  presently, 
helping  herself  to  marmalade;  "is  your  head  bad  again?" 

He  frowned  slightly. 

"No — not  very.  It's  going  to  be  a  hot  day,  that's  all." 
But  she  watched  him  closely  all  that  day,  and  the  next. 
His  face  was  a  little  thin,  its  bony  structure  showing 
through  flesh  that  was  less  ruddy  than  formerly,  and  his 
eyes  were  sunk  deep  in  his  head. 

Once,  in  talking  to  him,  she  laid  her  hand  for  a  second 
on  his,  and  his  was  hot.  Her  heart  smote  her.  If  he  were 
going  to  be  ill,  what  should  she  do? 

But  he  seemed  to  get  no  worse,  and  by  making  an  effort, 
which  she  alone  saw,  he  prevented  any  notice  being  taken 
of  his  health  by  his  mother  or  Viola. 

All  Viola  observed  was  that  he  was  what  she  called 
"cross."  Little  things  seemed  to  irritate  him:  a  sudden 
noise  would  make  him  jump ;  any  continuous  discussion 
annoyed  him.  "All  right,  then,  I  agree  to  anything,"  he 
would  say,  "only  let's  decide  quickly." 

He  was  conscious  of  these  things  himself,  and  tried  to 
maintain  his  usual  manner,  but  vainly. 

Once  he  confided  to  Maggie.  "I  say,"  he  whispered, 
hurriedly,  meeting  her  on  the  stairs,  "I've  told  Vi  I'm 
going  out — don't  say  you've  seen  me.  I  have  a  touch  of 
neuralgia  and  am  going  to  try  to  sleep  for  an  hour.  Would 
you  mind  waking  me  at  six?" 

And  at  six  she  stood  by  his  bed,  on  which  he  had  thrown 
himself,  fully  dressed,  looking  at  him. 

He  was  sleeping  soundly,  but  his  bushy  brows  were 
knitted  and  his  face  troubled.  Her  heart  ached  as  she 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  203 

studied  him.  Then,  very  gently,  she  stooped  and  just 
touched  his  brow  with  her  lips,  which  she  pointed  so  as 
to  make  her  touch  as  light  as  possible.  He  did  not  move, 
and  she  knelt,  tucking  her  ugly  little  talisman  into  her 
bosom,  to  prevent  its  falling  on  his  face. 

"Sandy,"  she  whispered,  her  face  close  to  his  own, 
"Sandy — I  am  going  to  hurt  you,  but  it  is  for  your 
good.  She  is  not  worthy  of  you — no  one  is  that,  my  beau- 
tiful darling,  but  she  is  a  coward.  You  frighten  her  even 
now,  and — she  has  no  backbone.  She  is  only  pretty.  And 
if  you  married  her,  you  would  lose  the  money,  and  you 
couldn  't  care  for  Syd — Oh,  it  is  for  your  good,  it  is !  And 
then,  when  she  has  deserted  you — for  she  will  desert  you 
— Mary  wouldn't,  but  she  will — then  you  will  come  to  me, 
and  I  will  take  care  of  you.  I  won't  tell  you  any  lies 
then ;  you  will  know  that  I  love  you,  and,  though  you  won 't 
love  me,  you  will  like  me,  and — and — oh,  so  help  me,  God ! 
I  will  be  good  to  you,  so  help  me,  God ! ' ' 

It  was  the  nearest  approach  to  a  prayer  that  she  had 
ever  made  in  her  life. 

For  a  long  time  she  knelt  there  in  the  cold,  rather  bare 
room,  her  face  hidden,  while  the  man  slept  heavily. 

Then  she  rose,  composed  her  face,  and  woke  him. 

"Wake  up,  Sandy.    It's  six  o'clock,"  she  said. 

He  stared,  and  muttered  Viola 's  name.  Then  he  opened 
his  eyes,  and  stared  dully  at  her. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  Maggie.  Six,  is  it?  All  right.  I'll 
come.  Oh,  my  head!" 

He  groaned  and  closed  his  eyes  again. 

"Viola  is  dressing,  Sandy — and,  as  she  thinks  you  are 
out " 

"All  right.    I'll  get  up.     Thanks,  Maggie." 

She  went  slowly  downstairs  and  into  the  deserted  draw- 
ing-room. She  pulled  the  heavy  red  curtains,  rearranged 
the  chairs,  and  filled  the  vases  with  flowers  that  had  just 


204  SHARROW 

come.  And  as  she  worked,  her  light  touch  bringing  the 
gaunt  room  to  a  semblance  of  beauty,  she  reflected. 

Sandy  was  going  to  be  ill.  Therefore,  her  time  would 
come.  He  must  not  be  ill  in  England,  or  Viola  would,  of 
course,  fly  to  help  nurse  him.  He  must  not  be  ill  before 
their  quarrel  took  place,  or  that  same  quarrel  would  never 
be.  It  must  all  happen  at  once. 

When  she  had  removed  the  stale  flowers,  and  her  work 
was  done,  she  stood  still  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  her 
arms  crossed,  her  head  bent.  Only  one  thing  was  wrong. 
Lord  Sharrow  ought  to  be  at  hand. 

Why,  she  could  not  quite  express  to  herself,  but  the 
feeling  was  strong.  The  old  man  ought  to  be  wherever  the 
rupture  between  Sandy  and  Viola  took  place. 

Should  she  wait?  Or  should  she  summon  her  old  con- 
federate ? 

Still,  to  her  furious  annoyance,  unable  to  decide,  she 
went  to  her  room,  opened  with  a  corkscrew  a  fresh  bottle 
of  Three  Star  brandy,  and,  pouring  a  big  drink  into  a 
glass,  crossed  the  passage  to  where  Sandy  was  dressing. 

"This  may  do  your  head  good,"  she  said,  as  he  peered 
round  the  door,  half  his  face  covered  with  lather. 

His  eyes  shone.  "Thanks.  I  never  heard  of  its  being 

good  for  headache  before,  but "  The  smell  reached 

him,  and  he  held  out  an  icy  hand.  "You  are  a  good  sort, 
Maggie. ' ' 

As  she  went  to  her  room,  Mrs.  Sharrow  called  up  the 
stairs:  "Oh,  Sandy,  I  have  just  had  a  telegram  from  your 
uncle.  He  is  in  town,  at  Bell's  Hotel  in  Dover  Street." 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

THE  two  girls  met  in  the  drawing-room  before  dinner 
and  stood  at  the  tall  window  looking  out  into  the  square. 

The  wind  had  come  up,  and  great  clouds  obscured  the 
clarity  of  the  sky.  The  old  trees,  dust-laden  and  nearly 
black,  tossed  and  whispered  as  if  in  fear  of  the  coming 
storm. 

Viola  shuddered.  "I  do  so  hate  thunder,"  she  said, 
nervously. 

Maggie  gave  a  little  laugh.  ''Thunder  never  hurt  any- 
one." 

"Oh,  I  know  that,  of  course;  but  the  lightning  is  at 
least  beautiful,  and  thunder  is  hideous — it  does  frighten 
me,  Maggie,  whether  you  think  it  silly  or  not ! ' ' 

Maggie  glanced  at  her.  Viola  was  as  a  rule  not  at  all 
irritable,  but  it  chanced  that  the  girls  had  never  been  to- 
gether when  a  heavy  storm  was  in  the  air,  and  Maggie 
knew  that  Viola's  nerves  had  never  been  very  strong. 

The  tightening  of  Viola's  lips,  the  line  between  her 
brows,  her  slight  pallor,  the  sharpness  in  her  voice — all 
these  things  seemed  somehow  to  hold  possibilities  for  Mag- 
gie; it  was  as  if  they  were  so  many  little  allies,  marshal- 
ling themselves,  unbidden,  on  her  side. 

Viola  wore  that  evening  a  charming  new  frock  of  flow- 
ered silk  muslin,  and  in  her  hair  she  had  stuck  a  rose. 
She  made  a  delightful  picture  standing  against  the  dark 
square  of  the  window.  Maggie  regarded  her  thoughtfully. 

A  low  rumble  of  thunder  broke  the  quiet,  and  Viola  drew 
back. 

205 


206  SHARROW 

"Oh,  Maggie,  do  close  the  window!" 

"It  will  be  dreadfully  hot,  dear " 

Viola,  with  the  little  frown  of  exasperated  nerves,  at- 
tacked the  window  herself,  closing  it  with  a  bang,  and,  as 
she  did  so,  Sandy  came  in. 

He  was  extremely  pale,  but  greeted  them  cheerfully, 
and,  as  it  was  Mrs.  Sharrow's  turn  to  dine  upstairs  with 
Syd,  the  three  went  in  to  dinner. 

The  dining-room,  with  its  forbidding  Georgian  side- 
board, dark  walls,  memorial-tablet-like  mantelpiece,  and 
thick  curtains,  was  stifling. 

Sandy,  without  speaking,  jerked  the  curtains  back  as 
far  as  they  would  go,  and  opened  the  window.  A  flash 
of  lightning  seemed  to  split  the  sky  as  he  did  so,  and  it 
thundered. 

Viola  moved  uneasily  in  her  chair.  "Oh,  Sandy,"  she 
said,  "what  a  horrid  storm!" 

"It  may  clear  the  air;  the  heat  is  intolerable  to-night," 
he  returned.  Then,  with  a  visible  effort,  he  complimented 
her  on  the  frock,  and  tried  to  eat  his  dinner. 

His  head,  Maggie  could  see,  was  splitting,  and  food  ob- 
viously disgusted  him,  but  he  did  his  best. 

They  were  planning  a  drive  to  Virginia  Water  for  the 
next  day,  when  a  terrific  clap  of  thunder  seemed  to  shake 
the  house.  Viola  gave  a  sharp  scream. 

Sandy's  hands  flew  to  his  head.  "Don't  scream,  Vi," 
he  begged,  hurriedly.  "I — I  can't  stand  it."  His  gesture 
and  his  words  were  involuntary,  Maggie  saw,  but  Viola, 
who  was  really  frightened,  was  angry. 

"I  hated  your  opening  the  window,"  she  said,  her 
voice  higher  than  usual.  ' '  Thunder  always  makes  me  ill. ' ' 

He  tried  to  smile  at  her,  and  drank  some  water.  "I 
am  sorry,  dear." 

The  electricity  gathered  force,  the  heat  seeming  to  come 
in  at  the  windows  in  waves. 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  207 

Presently,  at  the  very  crisis  of  the  storm,  when  a  blaze 
of  lightning  was  followed  almost  instantly  by  a  deafening 
roar  of  thunder,  Viola,  her  exasperated  nerves  quite  mas- 
tering her,  gave  several  ear-piercing  shrieks,  and  Sandy 
rose. 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  Viola,"  he  cried,  his  face  con- 
torted with  what  Maggie  knew  to  be  pain  far  more  than 
anger,  "stop  that!  It — it  is  perfectly  absurd " 

And  he  left  the  room,  slamming  the  door. 

"Wasn't  he  horrible,  Maggie?"  Viola  began,  when  the 
sound  had  died  into  a  silence  broken  only  by  the  furious 
lashing  of  rain  on  the  windows. 

"And — oh,  Maggie,  he  has  been — drinking  again.  I — I 
smelt  it  when  he  kissed  me ! " 

Maggie's  task  was  made  easier  to  her  by  her  honest 
scorn  for  the  silly  little  creature. 

If  Sandy  had  drunk  petroleum  it  would  not  have  shat- 
tered her  love,  and,  strong  in  this  strength,  she  despised 
Viola. 

"Did  you,  dear?"  she  said,  gently. 

"Yes.    It — oh,  Maggie,  it  made  me  feel  quite  sick." 

Maggie  did  not  speak.  The  less  she  said,  the  safer,  she 
knew,  would  be  her  future. 

After  one  or  two  more  bursts  of  thunder  the  storm  died 
away,  and  the  two  girls  went  into  the  drawing-room.  Here 
they  sat  on  a  little  satin  sofa  and  continued  their  talk. 

"I  don't  think  he  has  before — since  I  came,  do  you?" 
Viola  asked,  presently.  She  was  very  fond  of  Sandy,  and 
began  to  long  to  make  up. 

There  was  no  answer,  and  she  repeated  her  question, 
adding,  "Oh,  he  has,  and  I  didn't  know,  and  you  did,  and 
you  didn  't  tell  me ! " 

"But,  Vi,  darling,  how  could  I?  I  am  not  sure,  after 
all,  and — I  want  you  to  be  happy." 

Viola  drew  away  from  her.     "Maggie,"  she  said,  sol- 


208  SHARROW 

emnly,  her  little  figure  in  its  flowered  frock  bolt  upright 
in  the  shadowy  room,  "you  must  tell  me.  If  ever  I  saw 
him — you  know — drunk,  I — I  never  could  love  him  any 
more. ' ' 

"Couldn't  you?"  The  other  girl  eyed  her  with  such 
open  scorn  that  only  Viola's  tremendous  self-centredness 
prevented  her  perceiving  it. 

"No.  He  would  kill  my  love.  Besides — I  am  so  afraid 
of  drunken  people,"  she  added  in  a  lower  voice. 

And  again  Maggie  felt  honestly  justified  in  separating 
Sandy  from  such  a  weak  idiot. 

"I  have  not  seen  him  drunk  again,"  said  Maggie,  truth- 
fully. 

"But  you  know  he  has  been  drinking,  and  /  know  he 
has  to-night.  That 's  why  he  was  so  cross  at  dinner ! ' ' 

Maggie  listened  keenly.  This  argument  was  worth  gold 
to  her. 

' '  And  he  would  always  be  cross  when  he  had  been  drink- 
ing," Viola  went  on,  "and  he  is  exactly  like  Lord  Shar- 
row  when  he  scowls." 

Maggie  felt  as  must  have  felt  the  man  into  whose  mouth 
flew  ducklings  already  roasted/  She  had  an  exquisite  feel- 
ing that  all  she  had  to  do  was  to  sit  still  on  that  sofa 
and  let  the  gods  and  Viola  bring  Sandy  to  her  waiting 
arms. 

She  did  not  speak.  And  in  the  silence  Sandy  called 
from  the  landing  above,  "Maggie!  I  say,  Maggie " 

She  turned  her  head,  but  did  not  rise.  He  was  coming. 
"Yes,  Sandy." 

"Where  is  that  stuff  you  gave  me  some  of  before  din- 
ner? I  want  a  little  more." 

"Oh,  it's  on  my  dressing-table,  Sandy;  help  yourself." 

"Thanks." 

They  heard  his  retreating  footsteps,  and  then  Viola 
asked  curiously,  "What  stuff?" 


SHARROW  209 

Maggie  answered  with  perfect  serenity,  knowing  that 
Sandy  would  never  tell,  "Only  some  court-plaster.  He 
cut  himself,  shaving." 

The  room  was  warm,  and  presently  she  rose  and  went 
to  a  window. 

The  evening  was  now  beautiful;  faint  moonlight  fell  on 
the  newly  washed  trees  in  the  square,  making  of  it  a  little 
fairyland  in  which  a  man  and  a  woman  walked,  his  arm 
around  her  waist. 

Maggie  stood  staring  at  them  as  if  held  by  a  charm. 
Would  Sandy,  poor,  innocent,  brave  old  Sandy,  now 
drinking  brandy  in  his  bedroom,  ever  walk  like  that  with 
her? 

It  was  quite  true  that  her  love,  for  all  its  evil,  was 
strong  above  the  influences  of  circumstances.  Sandy 
might  drink,  he  might  steal,  he  might  betray  her,  yet  she 
would  continue  to  love  him.  She  was  not  a  good  woman, 
but  her  love  was  fine  in  its  immutability,  and  she  knew 
it,  and  felt  the  fact  to  be  her  justification. 

The  man  in  the  square  had  sat  down  on  a  bench  and 
drawn  the  woman  to  his  side.  She  put  her  head  on  his 
shoulder  and  they  sat  apparently  in  silence,  in  the  pale 
light.  Still  Maggie  watched  them. 

"Play  something  to  me,  won't  you,  dear?" 

Maggie  went  slowly  to  the  piano  and  sat  down  at  it. 
She  struck  one  chord,  and  rose. 

No.  If  she  played,  Sandy  might  come  down  before  the 
brandy  had  done  its  work.  She  made  some  excuse,  and 
the  two  girls  went  up  to  see  Syd. 

"Where  is  Sandy?"  Mrs.  Sharrow  asked,  looking  up 
from  her  place  by  the  bed.  She  and  Syd  were  playing 
old  maid. 

"In  his  room,"  answered  Viola,  coldly. 

Mrs.  Sharrow  turned  to  Maggie,  and  then  again  to  the 
younger  girl. 


210  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

"In  one  of  his  black  fits,  is  he?"  asked  his  mother, 
lightly,  quite  without  malice. 

"Yes;  he  left  the  table  in  a  temper,  and  has  not  ap- 
peared since." 

"Oh,  never  mind  Sandy,  Vi,"  put  in  Syd,  in  the  thin, 
high  voice  of  invalid  children,  "he  gets  what  he  calls 
'the  black  dog'  every  now  and  then,  but  it  doesn't  mat- 
ter. Dear  old  Sandear!" 

Syd,  with  his  transparent,  bony  face  and  cropped,  black 
hair,  was  comfortably  propped  up  with  pillows;  the  gas 
glared  down  on  the  tumbled  bed,  on  his  thin  hands,  and 
on  the  green  leather  board  on  which  the  cards  lay.  The 
walls  of  the  room  were  covered  with  yellow  roses  of  hide- 
ous and  impossible  design,  and  on  them  hung  the  steel 
engravings  that  Sandy  had  known  in  his  little-boyhood. 

There  were  no  Treasures  in  this  room,  except,  on  a  small 
table  in  the  corner,  the  old  medicine  chest,  given  long 
since  to  Sandy,  and  which  Sandy  had  transferred  to  his 
brother. 

Maggie  stood  and  watched  the  little  homely  scene  as 
Viola  joined  in  the  game,  the  mother  and  the  future 
daughter-in-law,  in  their  pretty,  simple  frocks,  devoting 
themselves  to  amusing  the  invalid  boy. 

Although  the  room  was  ugly  with  the  left-over  ugliness 
of  mid-Victorian  era,  the  picture  was  a  charming  one, 
and  the  looker-on  appreciated  it. 

But,  before  long,  after  she  had  noiselessly  arranged  one 
or  two  things  that  were  out  of  place,  and  set  a  jug  of 
crimson  roses  on  the  landing  for  the  night,  she  went  up- 
stairs. 

Sandy's  door  was  ajar,  and  she  looked  into  his  room. 
Through  the  frame  made  by  the  twisted  posts  of  his  bed, 
she  saw  him  sitting  by  his  table,  a  book  on  his  knees, 
Winker  asleep  at  his  feet.  By  his  side  stood  a  bottle,  his 
water-carafe,  and  a  half-empty  glass. 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  211 

"Hello,  Maggie;  that  you?"  he  asked. 
She  went  in.     "Yes;  how's  the  head?" 
"0 — beastly!     I  can't  imagine  what's  got  into  it!"  he 
answered,  not  quite  distinctly.    He  spoke  with  the  greatest 
good  humor,  and  bade  her  sit  down. 

He  was  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  and  forgot  to  apologize ;  she 
had  never  come  into  his  room  except  on  short  errands  be- 
fore, and  he  did  not  notice  it.  She  glanced  at  the  brandy 
bottle;  it  was  one-third  empty. 

With  a  shudder  she  realized  that,  although  one  drink 
affected  him  pleasantly,  it  would  take  an  appalling  amount 
to  reduce  him  to  the  condition  necessary  to  her  purpose. 
And  suppose,  indisposed  as  he  undoubtedly  was,  it  should 
make  him  seriously  ill?  With  resolution  she  banished 
the  thought. 

"What  a  beautiful  bed  that  is,"  she  began,  leaning 
against  a  chair. 

' '  Yes.  It 's  very  fine.  My  grandfather  bought  it  s-some- 
where."  He  took  another  drink,  and  then  set  down  the 
glass. 

"By  Jove,  I've  had  enough  of  this  stuff!  It  made  me 
feel  better,  and  I  kept  on  and  on " 

He  took  up  the  bottle,  and  looked  at  it.  "You  must 
excuse  my  greediness,  Maggie.  I — my  head  was  in-toler- 
able just  after  dinner.  The  storm,  I  daresay.  I  must 
*go  to  Viola  now.  I  owe  her  an — apology  for  being  cross. ' ' 

He  rose,  but  she  motioned  him  back  to  his  chair. 

"Vi  is  playing  old  maid  with  Syd,"  she  told  him.  "Sit 
here  till  your  head  is  quite  all  right;  it  will  be  far 
wiser. ' ' 

"But — isn't  poor  Vi  annoyed  with  me?"  he  insisted, 
settling  himself  comfortably.  "I  was  rude  to  her." 

' '  Nonsense !  I  tell  you  she 's  playing  old  maid.  Give  me 
a  wee  drop  of  your  brandy,  will  you?" 

She  tasted  it,  and  uttered  a  little  cry,  ' '  Oh,  how  strong ! 


212  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

Drink  it,  and  then  mix  me  some  very  weak;  there  isn't 
another  glass." 

Gravely  he  obeyed  her,  and  then,  still  talking,  he  poured 
another  big  drink  for  himself. 

"You  don't  like  it?"  he  asked  her.  "No?  Well,  I'll 
tell  you  a  secret,  Maggie."  He  took  a  great  draught. 
"I — I  love  it — brandy.  I  hate  wine  and — and  whiskey. 
But  brandy,  it — it — yes,  I  love  it.  Are  you  shocked?" 

His  speech  was  thickening  rapidly  now,  and  his  eyes 
shone  in  an  odd,  glassy  way. 

"Shocked?  No,  certainly  not.  Well,  look  here,  Sandy, 
I've  got  something  to  do — it  will  take  me  about  an  hour. 
Then  I  '11  get  Vi  into  the  drawing-room — Syd  will  be  asleep 
by  that  time — and  you  can  come  down  and  apologize  to 
her.  See?" 

"Yes,  I'll  come  and  apologize  to  Vi.    Will  you  call  me?" 

She  hesitated,  walking  slowly  to  the  door.  Then  she 
said,  her  hand  on  the  knob.  "No.  When  you  hear  me 
playing,  just  come  down." 

"All  right,"  said  Sandy. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

LORD  S  HARROW'S  man,  Waters,  had  been  allowed  to  go 
that  evening  to  see  his  married  daughter,  so  one  of  the 
waiters,  an  elderly  man,  named  Wilson,  was  assisting  the 
old  gentleman  with  his  toilet  for  the  night,  when  a  lady  was 
announced. 

Lord  Sharrow  was  over  eighty,  but  he  raised  his  an- 
cient head  as  the  announcement  was  made,  and  drew  his 
plush  dressing-gown  closer  round  his  thin  old  legs. 

"A  lady,  Robert?" 

"Yes,  m' lord." 

"Why  the  devil  isn't  Waters  here,  confound  him!  He 
could  have  gone  and  seen  whether  I  wished  to  see  her  or 
not.  What's  she  like,  Robert?" 

"A  young  lady,  m'  lord,  and  very  pretty,  if  I  may  say 
so,  and — a  young  lady,  m '  lord,  as  is  a  young  lady ! ' ' 

"Go  and  ask  her  name." 

While  the  man  was  away,  Lord  Sharrow  put  back  into 
his  mouth  one  or  two  back  teeth  that  he  had  removed; 
and  struggled,  with  the  patient  Wilson's  aid,  into  his 
pumps,  which  hurt  him. 

And  two  minutes  later,  he  and  Maggie  were  shaking 
hands. 

"Lord  Sharrow,"  she  began,  without  preamble,  but 
speaking  deliberately,  her  gaze  full  on  his,  "they  will 
quarrel  to-night,  and  to-morrow  or  the  next  day  he  will 
leave  England." 

"The  deuce  he  will!     How  do  you  know?" 

213 


214  SHARROW 

"I  have  no  time  to  explain  now.  You  must  trust  me, 
and  in  three  days'  time  I  will  write  to  you  and  tell  you 
all  about  it." 

The  old  man  made  a  slight  movement  that  meant,  she 
knew,  rising  anger. 

"Do  not  be  angry,  I  beg  of  you,"  she  went  on.  "I 
have  worked  very  hard,  and  I  am  on  the  point  of  suc- 
cess. If  I  cannot  leave  you  within  ten  minutes  with  what 
I  need,  everything  may  fail." 

Her  reasonable,  unexcited  voice  filled  him,  in  spite  of 
himself,  with  confidence.  He  knew  that  she  was  telling 
him  only  what  was  true. 

"You  want  money?" 

"Yes.    I  want  a  hundred  pounds." 

"I  haven't  as  much  here  to-night." 

' '  Then  give  me  what  you  have,  and  you  can  send  me  the 
rest." 

He  got  up.  "Miss  Penrose,"  he  said,  "you  ask  a  great 
deal  of  me — not  the  money,  but  the  confidence.  However, 
I  will  do  what  you  ask.  You  are  a  clever  woman." 

As  he  spoke,  the  clock  struck  once.  Maggie  glanced  at 
it,  paying  so  frankly  no  heed  to  the  old  man's  compli- 
ment that  he  smiled  as  he  opened  a  drawer  and  took  a 
leather  case  from  it. 

"You  are  not  vain,"  he  commented,  counting  bank- 
note after  banknote  onto  the  table. 

She  watched  him,  her  blue  eyes  grave.  "No,  I  am  not 
vain. ' ' 

"I  have  forty-five  pounds  here.    Will  they  do?" 

"Yes." 

She  folded  the  notes  into  a  small  packet  and  thrust  it 
into  the  front  of  her  frock.  Then  she  held  out  her  hand. 

"You  may  rest  well  to-night,  Lord  Sharrow, "  she  said, 
as  he  took  it.  "Your  great-nephew  will  never  marry  Viola 
Wymondham. ' ' 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  215 

"You  are  sure?" 

"I  am  sure." 

"Remember,  if  you  ever  persuaded  him  to  marry  you," 
he  began,  brutally,  but  unconsciously  so,  in  the  pressure 
and  the  haste  she  made  him  feel  so  keenly. 

' '  There  will  never  be  any  question  of  his  marrying  me, ' ' 
she  answered,  without  offence.  ' '  Good-by. ' ' 

"Good-by.  You  will  write?  I  am  a  very  old  man, 
and " 

"I  will  write." 

As  she  reached  the  door,  he  called  her  back.  "Mind 
you,  if  ever  you  let  him  know  that  I  had  a  finger  in  this, 
I  wm " 

' '  What  will  you  do,  old  man  ? ' '  she  asked,  suddenly  ex- 
pressing a  fierce  contempt. 

He  quailed  a  little,  but  recovered  himself  immediately, 
and  retorted,  ' '  I  will  tell  him  your  share. ' ' 

Her  eyes  blazed.  "If  you  let  him  know  that  I  have 
done  one  thing  to  prevent  his  marrying  the  woman  whose 
grandmother  made  a  laughing-stock  of  you  a  hundred 
years  ago,  I  will " 

For  a  moment,  in  the  hideous  banality  of  the  hotel  sit- 
ting-room, these  two  savage  creatures  glared  at  one  an- 
other almost  murderously. 

Then  the  old  man,  scorning  the  vulgarity  of  her  per- 
sonal attack,  bowed  with  exquisite  grace. 

"Dear  lady,"  he  said,  as  softly  as  a  cat  purring,  "I 
have  against  your  amiable  threat  a  sovereign  safeguard — 
I  am  so  old,  so  very  old,  that  I  should  surely  be  dead  and 
in  my  grave  before  your  vengeance  could  reach  me. ' ' 

Maggie  left  the  room  without  a  reply,  for  which  she 
had  no  time.  Her  hansom  was  waiting,  and  in  a  minute 
the  horse  was  clip-clopping  over  the  wet  stones  towards 
Bloomsbury. 

During  the  drive,   she  accomplished   the  perfecting  of 


216  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

her  plans.  The  necessity  for  great  hurry,  instead  of  dull- 
ing, stimulated  her  every  nerve.  If  she  had  had  more  time 
to  think,  the  difficulties  before  her  might  have  appalled 
her  and  lamed  her  powers.  But  she  had  no  time.  At 
Eagle  Place  she  sent  herself  a  telegram,  purporting  to  be 
from  one  of  her  sisters,  urging  her  to  come  at  once  to  the 
bedside  of  another  sister. 

This  was  for  Mrs.  Sharrow's  eye,  for  Mrs.  Sharrow  had 
always  known  of  the  existence  of  these  two  ladies,  whom 
she  had  denied  to  Sandy. 

As  she  reached  27,  the  clock  of  St.  Giles'  church  struck 
ten. 

Letting  herself  noiselessly  into  the  house,  she  took  off 
her  wrap,  hid  it  under  a  sofa  in  the  drawing-room,  and 
then  went  upstairs. 

The  little  party  in  Syd's  room  was  just  breaking  up. 
She  joined  it,  kissed  the  boy  good-night,  and,  when  Mrs. 
Sharrow  was  shut  safely  into  her  bedroom,  marched  the 
sleepy  Viola  down  into  the  drawing-room. 

"Have  you  not  seen  Sandy,  Vi?" 

Viola  yawned.  "No.  Poor  old  Sandy!  Syd  said  he  had 
a  headache;  I  ought  not  to  have  yelled  like  that;  it  does 
hurt  one's  head.  I  suppose  he's  gone  to  sleep.  Syd  has 
been  showing  me  his  scrap-books.  Sandy  made  them — 
has  made  them  for  years — all  sorts  of  verses,  and  stories, 
and  pictures — really  awfully  nice.  He  is  a  dear,  Sandy. 
And  I  was  a  beast  to  be  cross  just  because  he  had  taken 
a  little  brandy.  Why,  even  father  does,  once  in  a  while, 
and  father's  a  clergyman." 

Maggie  controlled  her  face  with  an  effort.  Her  wis- 
dom in  deciding  to  get  Sandy  out  of  the  country  was  made 
more  evident  than  ever.  This  idiot  not  only  did  not  know 
her  own  mind;  she  had  no  mind  to  know.  In  which  she 
was  as  utterly  wrong  as  strong  people,  in  judging  the 
weak,  are  apt  to  be. 


SHARROW  217 

Viola  yawned  again.  "Well,  good-night,  dear,  I'm  go- 
ing to  bed." 

Maggie  ran  her  fingers  over  the  keys  of  the  piano.  ' '  All 
right.  Wait  just  a  minute,  though.  Have  I  ever  played 
you  this?" 

She  began  to  play,  and  Viola  stood  near  the  door,  at 
first  irresolute,  kept  only  by  politeness,  and  then  held  by 
the  enchantment  of  the  music. 

It  has  been  said  that  Maggie  was  a  good  musician,  and 
never  in  her  life,  before  or  after,  did  she  play  as  she 
played  that  night.  What  it  was  that  she  played,  she  did 
not  know — it  was  just  the  flowing  from  her  fingers  to  the 
keys  of  the  charm  she  wished  to  make  Sandy,  alone  in 
his  room,  feel  through  the  fumes  of  the  brandy. 

Suppose  he  had  taken  too  little  and  was  now  all  right? 
She  knew  as  little  about  the  effects  of  spirits  as  most 
women  know;  suppose  he  had  taken  too  much,  and  lay  in 
a  sodden  sleep? 

She  played  on  and  on,  and  Viola  listened,  her  face 
flushed,  her  hands  clasped.  She  had  sunk  on  a  low  chair, 
and  her  eyes  were  fixed,  unseeing,  on  the  open  door. 

A  little  melody  that  Sandy  often  whistled  came  into 
Maggie's  mind,  and  half  unconsciously  she  wove  it  into 
what  she  was  playing. 

In  the  narrow  hall  the  gas  was  turned  on  full,  and  the 
broad  rail  of  the  stairs,  down  which  Sandy  had  slid  in 
his  childhood,  glistened  in  its  glare. 

Maggie  played  louder.  Supposing  Sandy  did  not  hear? 
Two  or  three  crashing  chords  sounded  through  the  quiet 
house,  and  then  the  calling,  fascinating,  insidiously  coax- 
ing melody  went  on  and  on.  It  was  like  a  voice  drowning 
all  resistance  by  its  sweet  persistence. 

A  door  opened  upstairs.  Viola  did  not  hear  it,  but  Mag- 
gie did,  and  the  persuasiveness  of  the  music  was  redoubled. 
Suppose  he  had  opened  his  door  only  to  listen? 


218  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

The  player  closed  her  eyes,  her  face,  in  its  intensity, 
was  nearly  awful.  Her  entire  will-power  was  centred  in 
the  drawing  downstairs  of  the  man  she  loved. 

And  slowly,  his  feet  heavy,  his  big  body  once  or  twice 
bumping  against  the  wall  or  the  banisters,  he  obeyed  her 
call — past  Syd's  door,  where  the  boy  he  adored  lay  already 
asleep,  past  his  poor,  inefficient  mother's,  and  down,  down, 
out  of  the  darkness  into  the  light. 

Maggie  opened  her  eyes.  Viola,  wrapt  in  the  music, 
had  not  yet  heard  the  sound  of  footsteps. 

But  Maggie  counted  them.  There  were  fourteen  steps 
from  the  next  landing.  He  had  come  down  six. 

She  played  on  very  softly,  afraid  of  breaking  her  own 
incantation.  She  wondered  what  the  little  melody  was, 
she  would  ask  him — some  day. 

"Seven,  eight,  nine,  ten" Viola's  wide  eyes  stared 

unseeing  at  the  unsteady  bulk  now  between  her  and  the 
wall — "eleven,  twelve,  thirteen " 

Viola  gave  a  loud  scream. 

Sandy  stood  in  the  doorway.  He  was  still  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves, his  dress-shirt  was  stained  with  brandy  he  had 
spilt,  his  red  hair  was  ruffled,  his  face  as  white  as  paper. 
He  was  a  sight  dreadful  to  behold,  and  Maggie  shuddered 
as  she  rose  and  involuntarily  stepped  forward. 

"Good  evening,"  Sandy  said,  slowly,  swaying  in  the 
doorway;  "that'sh  very  beau'ful  thing  you  were  p-play- 
ing." 

Viola  screamed  again,  and  rushed  to  the  farther  end  of 
the  room. 

Sandy  gave  a  foolish  laugh,  and  lunged  after  her. 

"Hello,  Vi,"  he  said;  "didn't  s-see  you.  I — I  have 
come — come" — he  banged  into  the  piano  and  knocked 
over  a  bowl  of  flowers — "to  'pologize." 

Maggie  Penrose  slipped  past  him,  and  softly  closed  the 
door. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  way  the  lives  at  27  Guelph 
Square  had  long  since  been  shaped  that,  all  through  the 
long  night  of  horror  and  fear  and  degradation,  Antoinette 
Sharrow  should  sleep  like  a  child. 

No  one  gave  a  thought  to  the  guarding  of  her  rest,  for 
no  one  gave  a  thought  to  her.  The  servants  were  sup- 
posedly in  bed,  but  in  reality  both  the  cook  and  the  house- 
parlormaid  were  out,  and  poor  old  Bean's  hearing  was 
no  longer  keen.  Therefore,  a  boy  bringing  Maggie  Pen- 
rose's  telegram  to  herself,  a  few  minutes  after  her  mo- 
mentous closing  of  the  drawing-room  door,  gave  the  bell, 
in  his  hurry  to  be  gone,  peal  after  peal,  until  finally  Mag- 
gie herself  opened  to  him. 

And  Mrs.  Sharrow  slept  quietly  on,  smiling  in  her  sleep. 

Maggie  had  gone  straight  up  to  her  own  room  on  leaving 
Viola  and  Sandy,  and  spent  the  first  ten  minutes  in  putting 
together  her  small  possessions. 

Then,  when  the  telegram  had  come,  she  tore  it  open 
and  left  it  on  the  table  just  inside  the  street  door. 

In  the  drawing-room  she  could  hear  the  sound  of  voices. 
Sandy  had  evidently  made  an  effort  to  pull  himself  to- 
gether, and  seemed  to  be  trying  to  explain  to  Viola,  who 
repeatedly  interrupted  him. 

The  clock  on  the  landing  ticked  with  the  sudden  weighty 
loudness  that  we  all  have  known  in  crises. 

Maggie  sat  down  on  the  lowest  step,  leaning  her  fore- 
head against  the  fluted  rails,  and  fixed  her  eyes,  as  well 
as  her  ears,  on  the  drawing-room  door. 

219 


220  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

She  wondered  that  Viola  should  stay  so  long  with  the 
drunken  man.  But  the  longer  the  better.  The  more  Sandy 
tried  to  talk,  the  more  he  would  disgust  and  frighten  her. 

Maggie,  now  that  she  had  time  to  think,  was  not  free 
from  fear  herself.  But  hers  was  another  terror.  Sandy 
was  ill;  she  knew  little  of  illness,  but  even  she  could  not 
fail  to  know  that  the  alternate  burning  and  freezing  of 
his  hands  meant  fever.  Typhoid,  she  knew,  was  not  con- 
tagious, but  suppose  that  he  as  well  as  Syd  had  caught  the 
germs  at  White  Shirley,  where  there  had  been  several 
cases,  Sandy's  developing  slower  because  of  his  greater 
vitality. 

And — suppose  he  were  going  to  die?  His  misery  at 
losing  Viola  would,  of  course,  militate  against  his  recov- 
ery; and  all  this  excitement,  perhaps  even  the  terrible 
amount  of  brandy  he  had  drunk  that  night,  might  increase 
his  danger.  The  girl's  heart  seemed  to  turn  cold  within 
her. 

"Bah — I  am  a  coward,"  she  told  herself,  impatiently, 
rising  and  leaning  against  the  door  to  listen. 

She  must  act,  not  think. 

For  a  minute  she  could  hear  nothing;  then  Sandy  said, 
less  thickly  than  he  had  spoken  when  he  first  came  down- 
stairs, but  evidently  with  a  great  effort,  "I  tell  you  Vi, 
it's  absurd;  I  am  not  drunk.  I  was  ill,  I  tell  you,  ill,  and 
— someone — someone" — Maggie  clenched  her  hands  in  a 
fit  of  helpless  terror;  suppose  he  told  her  name!  But 
Sandy  could  not  remember,  and  went  on,  stumbling  a 
little,  "Someone  gave  me  some  brandy,  because  I  was  ill. 
My  head  was  b-bad.  Oh,  yes,"  he  added,  just  as  Mag- 
gie's deep  breath  of  relief  left  her  lungs,  "it  was  M-Maggie 
gave  it  to  me." 

"That  is  a  lie.  Maggie  never  gave  you  brandy,"  re- 
torted Viola,  sharply.  "How  horrible  of  you  to  lie  about 
poor  Maggie ! ' ' 


SHARROW  221 

There  was  a  short  pause,  during  which  Maggie  again 
asked  herself  why  on  earth  Viola  stayed  with  him. 

"Oh,  no,"  he  agreed,  hazily;  "of  course,  it  wasn't 
Maggie.  Maggie's  a  good  sort.  I  like  Maggie " 

The  girl  they  were  thus  protecting  against  each  other, 
bit  her  lips.  They  were  making  things  unnecessarily  hard 
for  her,  and  she  felt  an  impulse  of  anger  towards  them 
both. 

"Let  me  go,  Sandy.     I  have  no  more  to  say." 

"No,  you  shall  stay  here  until  I  have  finished.  Now 
don't  s-struggle,  Vi,  or  you'll  hurt  your  wrists." 

So  he  was  keeping  her  by  force. 

"I  tell  you  I  am  not  drunk." 

Then  Maggie,  in  her  strained  attention,  heard  a  sound 
that  made  her  laugh.  The  sound  of  the  impact  of  flesh — • 
Viola's  absurd  little  hand  on  Sandy's  face! 

He,  too,  laughed.  Then  he  kissed  her,  and  there  was 
confused  noise,  as  of  a  scuffle,  a  scraping  of  stuffs,  and 
the  tinkle  of  the  smashing  of  glass.  Maggie  opened  the 
door. 

Sandy  had  set  Viola  on  the  piano,  on  a  piece  of  old 
brocade,  and  had  evidently  been  holding  her  there.  Now, 
however,  she  was  in  his  arms,  struggling  to  get  down,  and 
the  brocade  piano  cover  had  in  some  way  got  fastened 
to  his  cuff,  and  to  the  trimming  on  her  frock.  On  the 
dark  wood  of  the  piano  lay  an  overturned  vase,  some 
roses,  and  a  pool  of  water. 

"Sandy!" 

At  the  sound  of  her  voice,  Sandy  set  down  his  captive, 
and  she  flew  to  Maggie,  dragging  the  yellow  and  gold 
brocade  after  her  like  a  huge  tail. 

She  was  crying,  furious,  and  frightened. 

Maggie  put  her  arms  round  her. 

"Are  you  not  ashamed,  Sandy?" 

Sandy  contemplated    them    gravely.      "She  says  I'm 


222  SHARROW 

dr-drunk.  You  tell  her  I'm  perfectly  s-shober."  Then 
he  added,  "Look  a'  that  water  on  th'  piano— somebody 
ought  to  wipe  it  up." 

Viola  was  now  sobbing  wildly,  the  horror  and  indignity 
of  her  quarter  of  an  hour's  captivity  having  quite  broken 
down  her  nerves.  Maggie  soothed  her. 

"Hush,  dearest,  don't  cry " 

The  clock  struck  once.  It  seemed  to  the  elder  girl  in- 
credible that  only  an  hour  before  she  had  said  good-night 
to  Lord  Sharrow.  Half -past  ten  only! 

"Bedtime."  Sandy  stood  swaying  near  the  piano. 
He  had  forgotten  that  Viola  was  angry  with  him.  He 
was  sleepy. 

Suddenly  he  sat  down  on  the  sofa  near  the  flower-filled 
fire-place,  and  drew  up  his  feet. 

"Oh,  Maggie,  look  at  him.  Isn't  it  disgusting?  And 
to  think  that  I  might  have  married  him!" 

Viola's  small  face  was  calm  now,  and  her  mouth  set. 
There  was  left  in  her  only  loathing  for  the  man  she  had, 
only  an  hour  ago,  believed  herself  to  love. 

She  looked  at  him  as  his  glassy  eyes  closed  with  quiet 
contempt.  And  Maggie  looked  at  her  with  a  contempt  so 
fierce,  so  indignant,  that  even  Viola,  had  she  turned,  must 
have  seen.  But  Viola  did  not  turn.  Sandy  was  snoring 
now. 

"Come,  Vi,  you  must  go  to  bed." 

"To  bedl  I  am  going  to  my  aunt  in  Queen  Anne's 
Gate.  I  would  rather  die  than  stay  another  minute  in 
this  house.  Will  you  whistle  a  four-wheeler  for  me, 
Maggie?" 

"But,  Vi,  to-morrow  morning  will  do  just  as  well " 

' '  No.  I  am  going  now.  Aunt  Minnie  had  a  dinner  party 
to-night,  she  will  not  even  have  gone  to  bed." 

"Sandy  will  bombard  the  house  in  the  morning,  remem- 
ber, to  apologize " 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  223 

Viola  possessed,  for  all  her  youth  and  her  gentle  beauty, 
a  large  share  of  that  old-fashioned  quality,  hauteur. 

"I  think,"  she  said,  quietly,  "that  Sandy  will  never 
again  try  to  speak  to  me." 

She  took  up  a  lamp  as  she  spoke,  and,  carrying  it  to  a 
writing-table,  set  it  down,  seated  herself,  and  began  to 
write. 

Maggie  stood  still  where  she  had  been  left.  Everything 
she  wanted  was  coming  her  way ;  Viola  was  going,  she  was 
writing  to  Sandy  a  letter  that  would  drive  him  out  of  his 
mind,  he  would  rush  away,  and  she,  Maggie,  would  go 
with  him. 

Sandy  snored  on. 

There  were  eleven  great  medallions  in  the  carpet  be- 
tween Maggie  and  the  still  open  window,  and  four  from 
the  fireplace  to  the  door;  there  were  three  lamps  in  the 
room ;  six  bowls  or  vases  of  flowers ;  there  were  two  bronze 
pheasants  on  the  mantelpiece;  and,  chairs,  there  were  one, 
two,  three,  four — Maggie  dared  not  let  herself  think. 
Sandy's  utter  helplessness,  as  he  slept,  and  Viola  writing 
the  letter  that  was  to  break  his  heart — if  she  thought — 
no,  she  mustn't. 

Suddenly  the  moon  sent  a  shaft  of  light  in  sideways  and 
illumined  the  face  of  Great-uncle  Frederic,  Sandy's  bug- 
bear as  a  child. 

Great-uncle  Frederic  looked  amused.  He  seemed  to 
watch  Maggie  with  interest.  Almost  she  could  have  said 
that  he  winked  at  her. 

The  quiet,  broken  only  by  the  scratch  of  Viola's  pen, 
was  nearly  unbearable.  Then  a  hansom,  jerking  by, 
brought  a  relief  that  seemed  physical,  and  Viola  rose. 

She  looked  years  older  than  her  age,  and  her  very  walk 
had  gained  the  dignity  of  definite  resolve. 

"Here  is  my  letter  to  Mrs.  Sharrow — I  have  told  her 
only  that  our  engagement  is  broken,  and  I  beg  you  to  say 


224  SHARROW 

no  more — and  here  is  my  letter  to  Sandy.  Do  not  give  it  to 
him  until  he  is  quite  sober." 

She  handed  the  envelopes,  both  of  which  were  carefully 
sealed,  to  Maggie,  and  left  the  room. 

A  minute  later,  a  sharp  whistle  broke  the  silence,  and, 
after  a  long  interval,  another. 

Maggie  did  not  move. 

Presently  Viola,  wrapped  in  a  great  shawl,  came  down- 
stairs, and  paused  at  the  door. 

"Good-by,  dear  Maggie,"  she  said,  "I  shall  see  you 
again  soon." 

"I — I  am  going  away.  One  of  my  sisters — there's  the 
telegram " 

Viola  read  it  mechanically. 

"Oh,  I  am  so  sorry.  I  hope  she'll  soon  be  better.  I 
shall  make  Aunt  Minnie  take  me  away  somewhere,  to- 
morrow— when  we  come  back,  I'll  write.  Good-by,  dear." 

They  kissed,  and  parted. 

The  four-wheeler  rumbled  away,  and  when  it  had  turned 
the  corner,  Maggie  closed  the  house  door,  and  went  back 
into  the  drawing-room. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

SANDY  slept  until  three  o'clock.  Then,  moaning,  he 
awoke  to  the  most  terrific  headache  he  had  ever  had  in  his 
life. 

Maggie,  in  the  old  blue  dressing-gown  that  had  seen  so 
much  service  in  Syd's  sick  room,  sat  beside  him. 

"Who — what's  the  matter?"  he  mumbled,  immediately 
repeating  his  question  with  great  distinctness.  "What's 
the  matter,  Maggie?" 

"How  is  your  head?" 

"Splitting.  What  on  earth" — he  sat  up,  throwing  off 
the  afghan  she  had  covered  him  with,  and  looked  down 
at  his  stained  shirt,  and  his  shirt-sleeves,  and  his  shabby 
old  slippers. 

Then,  after  a  pause,  he  said :    ' '  Have  I  been  drunk  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  Sandy." 

For  a  moment  he  hid  his  face  in  his  hands,  and  she  saw 
his  knuckles  whiten  in  their  nervous  contraction.  "Viola 
was  here,  wasn't  she?" 

"Yes." 

"She  has  gone  to  bed?" 

"She  has  gone." 

He  rose,  accepting  her  words  in  the  sense  of  his  own 
and  walked  to  the  looking-glass. 

"Did  she  see  me — like  this?" 

"Yes." 

Maggie  wanted  to  say  more,  her  parrot-like  repetition  of 
the  word  annoyed  herself,  but  she  could  find  no  others. 

225 


226  SHARROW 

"Was  I— very  bad?" 

"Yes." 

He  went  to  the  window,  his  feet  not  quite  certain  even 
yet,  and  leaned  forward  to  get  the  chill  air  on  his  face. 
She  wondered  if  he  were  sober  enough  to  understand  the 
letter;  she  could  not  be  sure. 

"Get  me  some  brandy  and  water,  Maggie,  will  you?" 
he  asked,  without  turning. 

"Oh,  Sandy " 

' '  Don 't  bother.  It  will  straighten  me  out.  Only  a  little, 
mind." 

She  obeyed,  running  upstairs,  and,  stumbling  heavily 
just  outside  Mrs.  Sharrow's  door,  made  a  loud  noise. 
Clambering  to  her  feet,  without  a  thought  for  the  sleeper, 
she  rushed  to  her  room,  then  to  Sandy's,  and  brought  back 
to  him  the  drink  he  wanted. 

He  swallowed  it,  without  a  word  of  thanks,  and  then 
sat  down  near  the  window. 

"I  shall  be  all  right  in  a  minute  now.  Dear  old  Mag- 
gie, it  was  just  like  you  to  sit  up  with  a  swine  like 
me " 

' '  Nonsense,   Sandy. ' ' 

"It's  true.  You  have  always  been  good  to  me.  You 
are  a  real  friend — after  Ben,  I  suppose,  the  best  friend 
I  have  in  the  world. ' ' 

She  did  not  answer. 

The  room  was  very  cold  now,  and  she  shivered  a  little. 
Presently  he  rose,  walked  about  for  a  minute  or  two,  and 
came  and  stood  in  front  of  her. 

"Maggie — will  you  call  Viola,  please?  I  want  to  speak 
to  her." 

"I  can't,  Sandy." 

"You  must,  dear.  You  see — she  is  so  good,  so — so 
young.  I  can't  have  her  waking  up  to-morrow  morning  to 
— all  the  horror  of  to-night.  It  would  hurt  her. ' ' 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  227 


;But- 


" Don't  argue.  Be  my  sister  and  help  me.  I  have  been 
the  most  awful  beast  a  man  could  possibly  be — she  must 
have  been  shocked  out  of  her  life,  and  she  must  see  me  as 
I  am  now.  I — am  perfectly  sober  now." 

She  watched  him  anxiously.  Was  he  as  sober  as  he  be- 
lieved himself  to  be? 

She  rose  and,  without  a  word,  gave  him  Viola's  letter. 
It  covered  two  sides  of  the  sheet  and  was  closely  written. 

He  read  it  twice. 

' '  Do  you  think  she  means  this  ? ' ' 

His  voice  was  so  unlike  his  own  that  she  started  as  if  a 
stranger  had  suddenly  come  into  the  room. 

"I  have  not  read  the  letter,  but — yes,  she  means  it." 

"Read  it." 

There  was  in  his  white  face,  not  the  despair  she  had 
expected;  there  was  furious  anger,  and  she  was  glad. 

Viola's  letter  was  beautifully  written,  its  writing  as 
undisturbed  as  if  it  were  a  school  essay;  her  style  was 
measured  and  almost  literary.  But  there  breathed  in  every 
word  a  cold  disgust,  a  repulsion  that  brought  an  angry 
flush  to  Maggie's  cheeks. 

She  called  him  only  one  name,  but  that,  from  the  fas- 
tidious Viola,  told  volumes.  She  said  that  she  would 
rather  die  than  marry  a  sot. 

And  he  knew  that  she  meant  it;  that  to  her  he  was 
a  thing  ignoble  and  vile;  that  her  chiefest  thought,  as 
she  wrote,  was  self-congratulation  in  her  escape  from 
him. 

One  sign  of  girlish  despair,  one  tear-blot,  one  absurdity 
of  exaggeration  and  Sandy  would  have  hoped.  This  cold, 
well-balanced  expression  of  disgust  was  the  letter  of  a 
woman  who  knew  her  own  mind,  and  her  mind  was  such 
that  he  would  have  died  where  he  stood  rather  than  ever 
make  one  move  toward  her. 


228  SHARROW 

"A  nice  letter,  eh?"  he  sneered. 

Great-uncle  Frederic,  now  emerging  from  the  gloom  of 
night — the  lamps  had  long  since  gone  out,  and  Maggie's 
candle  was  guttering  in  the  socket — watched  with  interest, 
and  Sandy's  sneer  equalled  his  own  in  malevolence. 

"I  am  a  sot.  What  I  did  is  vile.  She  would  rather 
die  than  marry  me.  Good!  Ask  her  to  come  downstairs, 
will  you,  Maggie?" 

Maggie  would  have  liked  to  bring  Viola  before  the 
furious  man,  to  hear  his  arraignment ;  but  Viola  had  gone. 

She  told  him  this,  and  he  accepted  it  quietly. 

"Love  is  a  beautiful  and  noble  thing,  isn't  it?"  he  said. 
"It  makes  women  brave,  doesn't  it?  And  they  are  loyal 
creatures,  women.  Maggie,"  he  took  up  a  faded  rose  from 
the  pool  on  the  piano,  and  looked  at  it,  ' '  if  Viola  had  mur- 
dered her  own  father,  it  could  not  have  hurt  my  love  for 
her.  I  would  have  died  for  her,  and  rejoiced.  I'd  have 
been  broken  on  the  wheel,  or  roasted  alive  for  her.  And — 
this  is  the  way  she  treats  me. ' ' 

"She  is  a  fool,"  Maggie  answered  passionately. 

He  shook  his  head. 

"No.  She  is  a  weakling,  and  that  is  worse,  for  it  has 
made  of  her  a  traitor." 

"It  was  dreadful,  Sandy,  and  she  is  young " 

"So  am  I  young,"  he  thundered,  "and  do  I  not  know 
that  it  is  dreadful  ?  It  would  never  have  happened  to-night 
if  I  had  not  been  ill — you  gave  it  to  me — you  know. ' ' 

"Yes,  I  know.  But  you  mustn't  be  unjust,"  she  re- 
peated, "it  was  dreadful." 

Suddenly  he  reeled  where  he  stood,  and  held  out  his 
arms  blindly. 

She  caught  him,  and  helped  him  to  a  chair.  He  was 
fainting — just  as  Syd  had  fainted  before  he  fell  ill. 

Again  rushing  to  the  top  of  the  house,  she  brought  down 
an  unopened  bottle  of  brandy,  and,  knocking  the  top  off 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  229 

against  the  steel  grate,  poured  some  into  a  little  flower 
bowl,  and  gave  it  to  him. 

It  revived  him,  but  it  revived,  with  his  strength,  all  his 
fury  against  Viola.  He  raved,  called  her  names,  threatened 
her,  he  even  reviled  her  father  for  bringing  her  up  to  have 
no  loyalty,  no  courage. 

His  own  fault,  he  had  by  this  time  quite  forgotten. 
He  was  to  himself  simply  the  victim  of  her  monstrous 
injustice. 

Maggie  caught  his  hand  in  hers  once;  it  was  burning. 
His  bloodshot  eyes  looked  on  fire,  his  face,  ravaged  with 
fever  and  alcohol,  was  dreadful  to  behold. 

For  the  first  time  she  was  afraid. 

At  half-past  four  he  rushed  from  the  room,  and,  stum- 
bling horribly,  went  upstairs. 

He  came  down  a  few  minutes  later,  carrying  a  leather 
bag,  carelessly  closed,  and  a  greatcoat  over  his  arm. 

"Good-by,"  he  said,  "I  am  going.  I  am  going  where  I 
belong — to  Hell.  She  shall  know  it,  too." 

This  was  more  than  she  had  bargained  for,  but  she 
could  not  stem  his  resolve. 

"I  am  going — all  alone,"  he  said,  bombastically.  "The 
Sot  is  going." 

In  her  despair  she  burst  into  tears,  dreadful,  burning 
tears,  that  disfigured  her  face,  swelling  her  lips  and  nose 
in  two  minutes.  Sandy  came  back  from  the  door  and  put 
his  arms  round  her. 

"Why,  Maggie — mustn't  cry  for  a  Sot!  No  one  cries 
for  a  Sot!  Come,  come " 

She  clung  to  him.  "Sandy — I  can't  bear  it.  I  can't  let 
you  go  like  this " 

Her  plans  were  forgotten,  the  part  she  had  played  in 
his  ruin.  All  that  she  knew  was  that  she  loved  him,  and 
that  he  was  going. 

He  was  touched,  even  in  his  frenzy.     "Maggie,   dear, 


230  SHARROW 

don't.    Why  do  you  care  so  much  what  becomes  of  me?" 

"I  love  you,  Sandy,"  she  sobbed. 

He  drew  back  and  looked  at  her.  "You  love  me?  The 
drunkard  you  sat  by  all  night  ?  Little  Maggie,  little  Mag- 
gie " 

"Let  me  come  with  you?"  she  begged. 

"No." 

"Please,  Sandy."  She  wound  her  arms  around,  kissed 
his  hot  face,  her  body  close  to  his.  ' '  I  know  you  don 't  love 
me,  but  I — I — do  love  you.  Let  me  come  with  you — I  have 
money — we  will  go  abroad,  out  of  this  dreadful  coun- 
try  " 

His  bewildered  mind  seemed  to  try  to  collect  itself  as 
she  clung  to  him,  and  he  gazed,  frowning,  at  his  Great- 
uncle  Frederic. 

Then  he  said,  slowly,  "All  right.  You  are  worth  ten 
Violas,  Maggie.  Come  along — perhaps  I  shall  love  you 
some  day. ' ' 


PART  THREE 

AT  THREE-AND-THIRTY 

CHAPTER  XXXIX 

ONE  morning  in  late  October,  in  the  year  1894,  the 
cheerful  sun,  peering  in  at  the  window  of  a  room  high 
up  in  a  cheap  hotel  in  the  Rue  du  Bac  in  Paris,  saw  on 
the  pillow  the  face  of  a  sleeping  old  man. 

It  was  a  pleasant,  rosy  face,  and  its  fringe  of  clean 
white  hair  gave  it  a  look  of  benevolence,  and  even  of  inno- 
cence. 

On  the  marble-topped  table  by  the  bed  lay  a  large  silver 
watch  on  a  stout  chain,  a  leather  wallet  secured  by  a 
rubber  band,  a  glass  half  full  of  water,  and  a  carefully 
opened  letter. 

On  a  chair  were  neatly  spread  the  old  man's  clothes; 
rough,  purplish-brown  tweeds,  folded  with  care.  Over  the 
back  of  the  chair  hung  a  clean  shirt,  with  J.  D.  embroidered 
on  the  flap.  His  boots,  being  invisible,  were  presumably 
in  the  hands  of  the  cleaner  somewhere  below  stairs. 

The  ' '  Due  de  Bourgogne ' '  was  not  a  first-class  hotel,  nor 
did  it  belong,  even,  to  the  second  rank.  Clearly  it  was 
cheap,  and  probably  its  sordid  roof  had  seen  strange  sights. 
The  stained  yellow  walls  of  No.  13  had,  one  may  assume, 
looked  down  many  a  time  on  sleepers  very  different  from 
the  old  gentleman  occupying  the  room  that  October  morn- 

231 


232  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

ing.    He  looked,  in  his  healthy  goodness,  out  of  place  there. 

Presently  he  stirred,  moved,  and  awoke. 

His  small  blue  eyes  gazed  round  him  for  a  moment,  as  if 
he  expected  other  surroundings.  Then,  obviously  he  re- 
membered where  he  was,  and  what  had  brought  him  there, 
and  he  took  up  his  watch. 

"Nine  o'clock!"  he  exclaimed  in  English.  "Bless  my 
soul,  I  must  hurry." 

He  rang,  asked  for  ' '  Ochode, ' '  and  when  it  came  in  what 
looked  to  him  like  a  chocolate  pot  for  two,  asked  for  more. 

Then  he  rose,  washed,  and  quickly  put  on  his  clothes. 
When  he  had  finished  his  toilette  and  tied  his  spotted  tie 
to  his  satisfaction,  he  pocketed  his  wallet,  his  watch,  and 
his  letter,  and  went  down  the  interminable  and  dangerously 
slippery  stairs  to  the  dining-room. 

He  had  come  from  England  the  day  before,  he  had 
slept  ten  hours,  and  he  craved  for  eggs,  bacon,  toast, 
marmalade,  and  the  bad  coffee  of  his  class. 

He  was  given  one  very  small  egg  in  a  battered  metal 
egg-cup,  and  a  cup  of  coffee  that  he  found  delicious. 

The  room,  long,  narrow,  glossy,  and  dirty,  was  stuffy ;  all 
the  windows  were  closed.  He  opened  one,  and  found  him- 
self staring  at  a  lady  who  stood  at  her  window,  three  yards 
away,  in  her  chemise,  brushing  her  hair. 

He  rushed  back  to  his  table,  crimson  with  the  thought  of 
having  distressed  a  lady,  and  asked  for  more  coffee. 

Presently  the  door  opened,  and  a  small  dark  man  en- 
tered. 

"Mistaire  Dingle?"  the  dark  man  asked. 

And  our  old  friend  John  Dingle  nodded  and  invited  his 
guest  to  sit  down. 

John  Dingle  had  come  to  Paris  by  his  employer 's  orders, 
on  purpose  to  see  this  M.  Octave  Loiseau,  and  it  was  M. 
Loiseau's  letter  that  had  greeted  him  on  his  arrival  and 
lain  all  night  on  the  table  by  his  bed. 


SHARROW  233 

But  he  considered  it,  with  all  respect  to  Lord  Sharrow, 
a  dirty  business,  that  of  the  private  detective,  and  M. 
Loiseau  was  of  that  interesting  order. 

M.  Loiseau,  in  his  turn,  could  make  nothing  of  the  rosy, 
fat,  old  man  in  the  clothes  of  a  lunatic,  who  was  so  keen  on 
jam,  whatever  that  unobtainable  delicacy  might  be. 

It  was  now  ten  o'clock — late  for  John  Dingle. 

"Well,"  he  said,  as  he  finished  his  breakfast,  and  rose, 
"let's  get  to  work." 

"Yes." 

They  went  out  over  the  cobbles  that  led  from  the  court- 
yard into  the  street,  and  stood  near  the  door. 

"We  will  walk,  heint  And  you  will  tell  me  about  it," 
suggested  the  detective. 

But  Dingle  shook  his  head.  "You  begin,"  he  said. 
"Have  you  found  him?" 

' '  No.  For  two  days  I  have  searched ;  many  people  knew 
him  a  year,  two,  four,  six  years  ago,  but  now — pouf — he 
exists  not." 

' '  He  does  exist, ' '  contradicted  the  old  man,  stoutly,  ' '  and 
he  has  got  to  be  found. " 

They  walked  towards  the  quai  and  presently  sat  down 
outside  a  cafe,  and  Loiseau  ordered  an  absinthe. 

' '  I  have  the  letters, ' '  the  Frenchman  began,  as  the  sugar 
melted  in  the  little  flat,  pierced  spoon.  "The  main  facts 
I  know.  It  is  thus.  Ten  years  ago  he  left  England,  very 
angry.  For  six  years  after  that,  his  mother  had  news 
sometimes ' ' 

"Regularly.  Every  summer  his  brother  came  to  him  in 
France  for  six  weeks.  He  travelled,  went  all  over  the 
East,  spent  a  year  shooting  in  Africa.  At  any  time," 
Dingle  went  on,  impressively,  "up  to  eighteen  months  ago, 
we  could  have  found  him  in  a  month's  time." 

"I  see.  And  eighteen  months  ago — pas — no  more  let- 
ters, no  more  news." 


234  SHARROW 

"Just  so." 

"What  kind  of  a  man  is  he?  He  love  society — the 
ladies,  heint" 

"Everything  that's  right  'e  likes,  does  Mr.  Sandy." 
Dingle  spoke  stoutly,  but  his  honest  face  had  suddenly 
clouded. 

"He  is  not  married,  I  understand." 

' '  So  far  as  we  know — no. ' ' 

Loiseau  was  disgustingly  business-like.  He  took  out  a 
grimy  little  book,  licked  his  finger,  turned  several  pages 
and  began. 

"Void  mes  notes.  Age  33 ;  tall,  strong,  very  well-dressed. 
Not  handsome ;  hair  red ;  wears  a  ring  with  a  crest  cut  on  an 
emerald.  Bien.  Has  been  in  Paris  a  good  deal  in  the  last 
ten  years,  but  none  of  the  tradespeople  who  knew  him  have 
seen  him  for  many  months. 

"His  letters  are  all  at  his  banker's — he  has  not  been 
there  for  well  over  a  year.  About  thirteen  months  ago 
a  lady  called  with  a  note  from  him,  and  got  them.  Now," 
the  little  man  added,  with  a  change  of  tone  from  the 
demonstrative  to  the  speculative, ' '  I  ask  myself :  who  is  the 
lady!" 

Dingle  gave  a  kind  of  snort. 

"That  doesn't  matter  at  all,"  he  declared.  "We  want 
to  find  'im.  The  lady  is  none  of  our  business." 

Loiseau  eyed  him  with  scorn.  "You  have  put  the  mat- 
ter into  my  hands;  well,  what  /  say  is  this:  Cherchons  la 
femme.  Seek  the  woman." 

And  they  sought. 

They  went  first  to  the  prefecture  de  police,  they  went 
again  to  the  shops  where  Lord  Sharrow  had  taken  Sandy 
years  ago,  and  where  they  knew  he  had  traded ;  they  went 
to  the  bank,  and  John  Dingle  learned  that  the  lady  had 
not  been  very  young,  but  decidedly  good  looking,  and 
that  her  appearance  had  given  the  clerk  to  think  things. 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  235 

"Was  she  French?"  asked  the  detective. 

"No,  she  was  English,  and  I  think  had  been  here  be- 
fore. One  of  our  gentlemen  thought  he  had  seen  her  with 
Mr.  Sharrow " 

Dingle  mourned  inwardly. 

And  when  evening  came  they  were  still  seeking. 

It  was  a  beautiful  evening,  and  the  detective,  true  to 
his  principles,  was  ' '  looking  for  the  woman ' '  in  the  Champs 
Ely  sees. 

They  walked  slowly  along,  always  on  the  point  of  bid- 
ding each  other  good-night,  always  waiting  for  one  more 
carriage  to  pass. 

Suddenly  the  Frenchman  had  an  idoa.  "How  about 
money?  He  must  have  been  having  it  sent  out  from 
England." 

"His  lordship  himself  thought  of  that.  His  London 
bankers  gave  him  a  big  advance  a  year  ago — sent  it  to 
the  bank  here.  Since  then  they  have  not  heard  of  him." 

Loiseau  shook  his  head. 

"He  had  some  motive  for  that.  He  has  left  the  coun- 
try." 

"But  a  lady  who  has  known  him  all  her  life  is  sure 
that  she  saw  him  at  the — the  big  Spring  Race  Meeting  in 
June " 

"Le  Grand  Prixl" 

"Yes." 

The  detective,  his  eyes  still  fixing  each  carriage  as  it 
passed,  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Well — in  that  case,  he 
is  living  under  an  assumed  name." 

Dingle   started  angrily,  his  honest   face  red. 

"He  is  not  doing  that,  I'll  be  bound,"  he  declared  with 
vehemence.  "He's  not  one  to  be  ashamed  of  his  own 
name." 

"No.  But — he  may  think  his  own  name  might  be 
ashamed  of  him." 


236  SHARROW 

Dingle  hated  him. 

A  moment  later,  and  the  two  men  had  parted  for  the 
night,  and  Dingle  went  heavily  back  toward  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde. 

His  old  heart  was  sad.  He  knew  that  Loiseau  was  in 
his  line  the  best  that  money  could  buy,  but  he  hated  that 
such  a  man  should  come  in  touch  with  the  old  house  he 
had  served  all  his  life.  And  the  man's  taking  for  granted 
that  Sandy  was  not  all  he  ought  to  be,  hurt  Dingle's 
pride. 

He  turned  towards  the  bridge  and  stood  looking  at  the 
rush  of  the  swollen  river.  He  had  never  been  in  Paris 
before,  and  he  loathed  it.  Two  girls  passed  him  and 
laughed.  He  thought  that  they  were  laughing  at  him. 
He  wanted  to  be  back  in  his  own  country,  in  his  own 
village,  with  his  own  fat  daughter  to  comfort  and  pet 
him. 

He  felt,  in  the  crowd,  as  an  insular,  reticent  British  egg 
might  feel  on  suddenly  finding  itself  a  part  of  a  French 
omelette. 

Suddenly  an  open  cab  went  by,  going  across  a  bridge. 
The  lady  in  it  turned  as  she  passed  him,  and  he  saw  her 
face. 

He  knew  her,  but  could  not  place  her.  He  couldn  't  place 
her,  but  he  knew  she  was  necessary  to  him. 

He  hurried  after  the  cab,  elbowing  his  way  through 
the  crowd,  unheeding  the  cries  of  "boor"  and  "clown" 
that  were  hurled  at  him. 

At  the  far  end  of  the  bridge,  he  jumped  into  a  cab,  and, 
pointing  with  the  stick  that  had  prodded  so  many  pigs, 
pierced  so  many  clods,  in  Sharrow,  toward  the  lady  he  was 
following,  said  to  the  cabman:  "Ally." 

The  cabman,  who,  by  a  miracle,  was  a  genial  man,  and 
fully  sober,  understood  and,  lashing  his  beast,  made  after 
the  quarry. 


CHAPTER  XL 

WHEN  the  first  cab  pulled  up  at  a  large  door  in  the 
Rue  des  Saints  Peres,  its  pursuers  were  at  some  distance 
behind,  but  by  the  time  the  lady  had  paid  her  Jehu,  and 
placated  his  storm  of  abuse  by  another  and  apparently 
reluctant  contribution,  John  Dingle  had  come  up  to  her. 

She  was  slim,  charmingly  dressed,  and  it  seemed  to  him, 
young. 

He  hesitated  for  a  moment,  and  then,  as  she  went  in 
under  the  porte-cochere,  he  stopped  her. 

"Surely,  Madam,"  he  said,  baring  his  old  bald  head, 
"you  are  Miss  Penrose?" 

Now  everyone  likes  to  be  remembered,  and  nearly  every- 
one is  conscious  of  a  pleasant  feeling  of  gratification  on 
having  his  or  her  name  remembered  with  glibness,  after  a 
long  period  of  years,  by  a  mere  acquaintance. 

She  turned,  smiling. 

"Yes — that  is,  I  used  to  be  Miss  Penrose.  But  I  am 
afraid— 

A  blackbird  in  an  osier  cage  hung  outside  a  window  in 
the  courtyard  burst  into  a  trill  of  lovely  melody,  and 
somehow  the  bucolic  sound  gave  her  a  clue. 

"Wasn't  it  in  England? — Surely  it  was  at  Sharrow," 
she  cried. 

"Yes — I  am  John  Dingle,  the  steward." 

' '  Of  course  you  are !  How  do  you  do  ?  And  how  de- 
lightful of  you  to  remember  me !  Will  you" — she  hesitated 
a  little,  and  then  went  on,  cordially — "will  you  not  come 
upstairs  with  me,  and  tell  me — the  news?" 

237 


238  SHARROW 

The  old  man  assented,  paid  his  cabman,  and  stumped 
heavily  beside  her  as  she  went  up,  up,  up,  with  graceful 
lightness  of  foot.  And  then  she  made  him  sit  down  near 
an  open  window,  and  poured  out  some  wine  for  him. 

In  the  clear  light  that,  so  high  was  the  room,  still  filled 
the  sky,  he  now  saw  things  that  had  escaped  him  in 
the  street. 

Her  dress  was  well  cut  and  well  put  on,  but  it  was 
shabby ;  one  of  her  small  boots  was  carefully  patched,  and 
her  face  was  wan.  She  looked  poor. 

The  old  man  watched  her  sympathetically  as  she  bustled 
about,  putting  away  her  hat  and  gloves,  folding  a  news- 
paper, pushing  into  greater  prominence  on  the  table  a 
potted  fuschia  covered  with  bells. 

The  room  was  rather  bare,  but  spotlessly  clean.  On  its 
scrubbed  and  waxed  floor  lay  a  long  strip  of  cheap  carpet. 

The  chairs  and  sofa  were  of  the  rigid  French  kind,  and 
covered  with  dark  green  satin,  except  the  bergere  in  which 
the  old  man  was  resting  his  tired  bones.  It  was  of  old 
leather.  The  table,  very  highly  polished,  was  decorated 
with  small  red  and  white  crocheted  mats,  and  over  the 
gilt  mirror  pink  mosquito  netting  was  draped  against  the 
onslaughts  of  flies. 

To  a  Frenchman  the  room  showed  not  only  comparative 
poverty,  but  something  close  to  the  real,  vital  kind.  This 
was  hidden  from  the  Englishman,  because  to  him  satin  on 
chairs  and  gilding  on  picture  frames  meant  a  certain  sort  of 
luxury. 

And  there  were  flowers,  and  a  canary  in  a  new  cage. 

The  wine  did  him  good,  for  he  was  over  sixty,  and  he 
had  had  a  hard  day. 

"How  is  your  pretty  daughter?"  Maggie  asked,  coming 
at  last  and  sitting  down  by  him. 

"She  is  enjoying  excellent  health,  thank  you.  Too 
stout,  of  course,  but  she  gets  about  as  quick  as  many  a 


SHARROW  239 

thinner  woman — and  you — did  I  understand  you  to  say 
you  were  married?" 

The  sky  was  changing  to  a  warm  apricot  now,  and 
gold-edged  clouds  peered  above  the  roofs  opposite. 

"I  am  a  widow,"  Maggie  Penrose  said,  composedly. 

' '  They  will  ask  me  at  home, ' '  he  returned,  to  explain  his 
curiosity.  Meeting  her  was  to  him  a  real  adventure,  even 
if  he  had  not  felt  vaguely  that  she  might  help  him  to  find 
Sandy. 

She  winced  at  the  simple  good  faith  of  his  words,  al- 
though she  was  glad  in  a  way  to  hear  them,  for  they  as- 
sured her  that  Lord  Sharrow  had  kept  his  promise. 

"My  poor  husband  died  three  years  ago,"  she  went 
on,  "and  I  have  lived  here  ever  since." 

"You — you  have  no  children?" 

"No."  She  sat  in  the  shadow  of  the  curtain;  so  he 
did  not  see  the  quick  flush  that  swept  up  her  face  at  the 
question. 

"That  is  a  pity,"  he  said,  with  innocent  sympathy. 
Suddenly  he  noticed  her  start,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  room. 

"Mr.  Dingle,"  she  said,  rising,  "have  you  noticed  that 
perfectly  lovely  cloud  over  there,  to  the  left?" 

She  pointed  and,  perforce,  his  eyes  followed  her  indi- 
cation. But  he  knew,  as  he  turned  and  she  slipped  be- 
hind him,  that  she  was  getting  between  him  and  some- 
thing she  didn't  wish  him  to  see. 

He  stared  at  the  cloud  for  a  moment,  heard  the  light 
jar  of  a  closing  drawer,  and  resumed  his  seat. 

"Miss  Penrose."  he  said,  bluntly,  "I  have  come  to  Paris 
to  look  for  Mr.  Sandy." 

"For" — she  put  her  hand  to  her  side  and  sat  down, 
quickly — "for  Mr.  Sandy?  Is  he  not  in  England?" 

"No,"  answered  the  steward,  his  face  suddenly  shrewd 
as  he  looked  at  her. 


240  SHARROW 

And  she  knew  that  he  knew  she  was  tacitly  lying. 

"I  saw  him  once,  four  years  ago,"  she  continued  dog- 
gedly, trying  to  smile,  "but  since  then — no.  I  supposed 
he  was  in  England." 

Dingle  was  puzzled.  He  did  not  lightly  incline  to  think 

ladies  lied,  and  yet "It's  this  way,"  he  began,  slowly, 

leaning  his  hands  on  his  stick,  his  chin  on  his  hands. 
"His  lordship  is  a  very  old  man.  He's  over  ninety,  and 
hasn't  done  more  than  get  from  his  bed  to  his  chair,  and 
from  his  chair  to  his  bed,  for  the  past  three  years.  And  it 
is  absolutely  necessary  that  'e  should  see  Mr.  Sandy  before 
'e  dies.  Ab-so-lute-ly  necessary. 

"He  has  been  advertising  for  over  six  months  in  papers 
all  over  the  world,  his  solicitor  himself  came  over  here  in 
June  and  tried  to  find  'im.  They  have  written  to  dozens 
of  people  in  different  places,  who  would  'ave  recognized 
'im  if  he  had  been  there,  they  have  done  everything  they 
can  think  of.  And  they  can't  find  'im.  So  I  finally  per- 
suaded 'is  lordship  when  they  decided  to  get  a — a  detec- 
tive to  look  for  him  here  in  Paris,  to  let  me  come,  too.  I 
thought  he  might  mind  it  less" — he  paused,  casting 
about  for  words  to  express  his  thought — "I  thought  he 
might  mind  it  less  if  he  was  found  by  one  from  the  old 
place. ' ' 

In  the  gathering  gloom,  Maggie  Penrose  leaned  towards 
him.  "I  see,"  she  said  gently. 

"And  when  I  saw  you,  I  thought  you  might  know  some- 
thing to  tell  me." 

"No.    I  can  tell  you  nothing,  Mr.  Dingle." 

He  rose,  straightening  his  back  with  a  jerk. 

"That  does  not  mean  that  you  know  nothing.  "What," 
he  asked  her  sternly,  "did  you  hide  away  from  me  in  that 
drawer,  a  minute  agone?" 

It  never  even  occurred  to  her  to  tell  him  that  that  was 
her  concern  alone.  She  was  silent. 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  241 

"You  know  where  he  is,  you  have  seen  him,"  he  went  on, 
passionately. 

She  raised  her  head. 

"I  haven't  seen  Sandy  Sharrow  to  speak  to  for  over  a 
year." 

This  time  she  spoke  the  truth,  and  the  old  steward  knew 
it. 

' '  Look  here,  Mrs. — you  have  not  told  me  your  name — you 
must  tell  me  all  you  know  about  'im. ' ' 

"Is  it  Lord  Sharrow  who  wants  to  know?" 

He  could  no  longer  see  her  face,  but  her  dark  figure 
stood  out  against  the  bare  wall,  and  he  knew  that  she 
was  tense  with  interest. 

"It  is,"  he  said  slowly,  "entirely  for  his  own  good." 

' '  Are  you  sure  of  that  ? ' ' 

' '  Am  I  sure  ?  "Would  I,  John  Dingle,  who-  have  known 
'im  since  'e  was  a  little  red-headed  child — would  I  harm 
'im?" 

"No,"  she  answered,  very  low.  "I  am  sure  you  would 
not.  Well,  sit  down  again,  and  I  will  tell  you." 

Dingle  obeyed,  and  waited  with  bucolic  patience  while 
she  lighted  a  green-shaded  lamp,  drew  the  curtains,  and 
came  back  to  him.  In  her  hand  she  held  a  silver  photo- 
graph frame.  This  she  gave  to  him. 

"Is  that — yes,  it  is  'im.  Well,  well — he  looks 
older." 

' '  He  is  older ;  we  are  all  that, ' '  she  returned  without  bit- 
terness, sitting  down.  "And  that  picture  was  taken  two 
years  ago." 

Clasping  her  hands  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  and  looking 
steadily  at  the  old  man,  she  began. 

' '  I  will  not  tell  you  the  beginning  of  the  story ;  he  may 
tell  you  that,  or  not,  as  he  pleases.  I  will  go  back  to  one 
night,  a  year  ago  this  very  night.  You  must  understand, 
Mr.  Dingle, ' '  she  hesitated,  trying  to  find  words  that  would 


242  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

not  hurt  him  in  his  innocence  of  life,  "that  we  had  been 
living  together — off  and  on — for  several  years." 

He  nodded,  without  speaking. 

' '  He  was  not  always  with  me,  for  he  is  restless ;  he  gets 
'go-fever'  every  now  and  then,  and  has  to  travel.  He  went 
to  Africa  once,  and  stayed  two  years;  then  he  went  East, 
and  he — he  left  me  for  six  months  in  Ceylon,  while  he  went 
to  Saigon  and  Burmah  and  the  Settlements.  He  is,  as  I 
said,  restless." 

"But — excuse  my  interrupting  you — every  summer,  ex- 
cept one,  his  brother  was  with  him." 

She  nodded.  "Yes.  And  I  was  not.  He  used,  at  those 
times,  to  pull  himself  together" — she  bit  her  lip,  but  as 
Dingle  did  not  speak  or  appear  to  have  noticed  her  slip, 
went  on  hurriedly,  "but  in  the  end  he  always  came  back  to 
me.  So  I  waited." 

Some  one  was  drawing  water  at  the  well  in  the  court 
below,  and  she  paused  until  the  creaking  noise  had 
ceased. 

"But — a  year  ago  he  left  me,  and  he  will  never  come 
back." 

"He  isn't  deadt"  ejaculated  the  old  man,  half  rising. 

Her  little  gesture  reassured  him.  "No,  he  is  not  dead. 
I  wish  he  were." 

"You  mustn't  say  that,  my  dear,"  he  said  kindly.  "He 
will  be  happy  yet — he  is  young." 

"Yes,  he  is  young.  Well,  to  go  on,  he  left  me.  He 
will  not  read  my  letters,  when  I  write,  nor  see  me  when  I 
go  to  his  house.  He — hates  me." 

"His  house!     Then  he  is  here  in  Paris?" 

"Yes.    Come  with  me." 

Leading  him  through  a  passage  to  her  tiny  kitchen,  she 
opened  a  window  and  pointed  to  a  kind  of  broad  terrace 
several  floors  lower  than  where  they  stood. 

"There,  you  see  those  two  lighted  windows,  behind  the 


S  H  A  R  E  O  W  243 

terrace,  over  the  garden?  That  is  his  house,  those  are  his 
windows. ' ' 

Tears  of  relief  and  joy  stood  in  the  old  steward's  eyes,  as 
he  gazed. 

"Thank  you — thank  you,"  he  said.    "You  are  good." 

"  I !  Ask  him  when  you  see  him — ask  him  if  I  am  good. 
And  he  will  tell  you  that  I  am  a  plotter,  and  a  liar,  and 
a  thief;  he  will  tell  you  what  I  did,  and  how,  after  nine 
years  of  devotion  and  patience — ah,  yes,  I  have  been  pa- 
tient— he  left  me  for  it  as  if  I  had  been  poisonous,  when 
he  found  it  out — a  year  ago  this  very  night.  The  long  arm 
of  coincidence,  eh?" 

"Poor  girl!     poor  girl!" 

If  she  had  cried,  Dingle  would  have  tried  to  comfort 
her,  but  quite  suddenly  she  was  calm  again,  and  led  him 
back  to  the  salon. 

"It  is  Place  de  1'Arbre  Vert  16,"  she  said,  as  he  took  up 
his  hat.  "Wait,  111  write  it  down." 

He  put  the  paper  safely  into  his  wallet,  shook'  hands  with 
her,  and  she  opened  the  door. 

"Make  him  go  back  to  England,  if  you  can,"  she  said. 
"That  may  save  him,  even  yet!" 

"Save  him?" 

"Yes.  Make  him  go.  And,  some  day,  write  and  tell  me. 
My  name  here  is  Madame  Brown." 

He  was  half-way  down  the  dark  stairs,  when  she  called 
him: 

"Mr.  Dingle,  wait.  His  name,  at  that  address,  is  M. 
Alexandre,  '  Mr.  Alexander. '  Don 't  forget. ' ' 

"So  that  detective  was  right,"  the  old  man  thought, 
sadly,  as  he  went  out  into  the  lighted  street. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

JOHN  DINGLE  could  never  recall  anything  about  the 
meal  he  had  that  evening  at  a  neighboring  restaurant,  ex- 
cept that  the  radishes  were  partly  peeled,  and  looked  as  if 
they  wore  fantastic  pink  jackets  over  their  little  white 
bodies. 

After  many  months  of  disappointment,  Sandy  was 
found,  and  it  was  to  the  faithful  old  servant  a  matter  of 
warm  self-congratulation  that  it  was  he,  and  not  the  de- 
tective (who  in  his  mind  was  closely,  if  vaguely,  connected 
with  burglars),  who  had  found  him. 

Maggie  Penrose's  story  had  somewhat  disquieted  him, 
but  as  he  ate  his  dinner  the  comfort  of  the  food  and  the 
warmth  of  the  restaurant — for  he  was  chilly  with  fatigue, 
though  the  evening  was  warm — gained  on  him,  and  he  lost 
all  misgivings  in  the  satisfaction  of  the  main  point. 

Sandy  was  even  now  within  a  stone's  throw  of  him,  and 
he  it  was  who  had  found  him. 

When  he  had  paid  his  modest  reckoning,  Dingle  rose  and 
waited  patiently  at  the  restaurant  door  until  an  empty 
fiacre  passed.  This  he  hailed,  and  standing  up  in  it,  stood, 
like  Mr.  Boffin,  with  his  stick  under  his  arm,  until  he  had 
found  the  paper  Maggie  had  given  him. 

"Ally,"  he  said,  and  the  man,  holding  the  paper  for  a 
moment  to  his  lamp,  drove  slowly  away. 

At  the  far  end  of  the  next  street,  the  fiacre  pulled  up 
at  a  low  door  leading  into  a  small,  irregular  place,  a  back- 
water of  old  Paris. 

244 


SHARROW  245 

" Ally,"  repeated  the  steward. 

"On  n'y  passe  pas  en  voiture,  M'sieur,"  explained  the 
man  rapidly,  " c'est  un  cul-de-sac." 

Out  shot  the  stick.    ' '  Ally. ' ' 

He  was  curt,  le  vieux  copain,  but  he  had  a  smile,  but, 
name  of  little  St.  Antoine,  a  smile-! 

"Je  r'grette,  M'sieur,  mais  y  a  pas  moyen.  Regardez — 
mon  sapin  y  resterait  pince." 

He  pointed  to  the  low  archway,  and  the  steward  under- 
stood. 

' '  All  right.    I  '11  walk.    You  wait  here.    Understand  ? ' ' 

After  a  pause,  fishing  painfully  in  the  depths  of  his 
memory,  he  added:  "Attendez." 

And  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether  he  or  the  cabman  were 
the  more  delighted  over  this  inspiration. 

The  old  man  went  his  way  into  the  Place  de  1'Arbre 
Vert,  feeling  that  the  mysteries  of  the  French  language 
were  greatly  exaggerated. 

The  Place  of  the  Green  Tree  was  old  and  treeless  in 
Henry  the  Fourth's  time.  Its  cobbles,  huge,  round,  and 
separated  from  one  another  by  deep  interstices  in  which 
grass  grew,  were  as  large  as  cabbages ;  of  those  cobbles  that 
make  one  pity  the  ladies  of  long  ago,  when  coaches  were 
springless  and  hung  on  leathern  straps  at  the  best. 

The  tall  old  houses  in  the  Place,  which  may  be  de- 
scribed as  a  rough  triangle,  had  roofs  that  seemed  to 
come  down  over  their  brows  as  if  they  did  not  court  recog- 
nition, and  several  of  them  were  empty.  They  looked,  in 
the  light  of  the  oil  lamp  that  was  the  Place's  only  source 
of  light,  as  if  the  hand  of  time  had  never  been  laid  on 
them.  They  were  very  old,  very  gray,  very  shabby,  but  they 
appeared  to  be  just  as  they  had  been  left  on  the  day  of 
their  completion,  hundreds  of  years  ago.  They  had  never 
been  restored. 

And  over  their  great  doors,  coats-of-arms  were  still  hang- 


246  SHARROW 

ing,  having  escaped  the  destruction  of  the  revolutionary 
patriots,  because  even  then  the  Place  de  1'Arbre  was  too 
old,  too  secluded,  too  insignificant  to  matter. 

Only  a  few  lights  burned  at  the  windows,  and  under 
the  lamp  old  Dingle  stopped,  looking  around  him.  There 
were  no  numbers  to  be  seen  anywhere. 

He  was  about  to  go  back  to  the  cabman  when  a  little 
girl  came  out  of  the  nearest  door,  a  jug  in  her  hand.  On 
her,  out  of  the  darkness,  came  a  most  alarming  apparition, 
who  thrust  a  scrap  of  paper  under  her  nose,  and  said 
determinedly,  "Oo?" 

Being  a  woman  child  in  France,  she  wept  aloud,  for  the 
purpose  of  luring  from  his  box  in  la  maison  du  coin,  the 
porter,  Auguste. 

He  came,  and  fiercely,  with  the  air  of  being  the  world's 
only  champion  of  womankind,  flung  himself  towards  the 
malefactor.  When  a  bit  of  paper  was,  in  his  turn,  thrust 
under  his  nose,  and  "00"  was  roared  at  him,  he  was 
staggered. 

He  read,  almost  in  spite  of  himself. 

Then  he  sulked.  "Eh  bien,  qu'est-ce  que  vous  voulez 
que  je  fasse,  moif" 

"Mr.  Sharrow." 

"M. T" 

"Sharrow.  No,  no,  Mr.  Alexandre." 

In  spite  of  his  saying  the  name  in  English,  the  porter 
understood. 

"M.  Alexandre — oui,  c'est  bien  id " 

Besides  ally  and  attendy,  the  steward  understood  an- 
other word.  This  chanced  to  be  oui. 

The  little  girl  rushed  away  to  the  well  which  presently 
yielded  to  her  grinding,  and  brought  up  water  for  her 
jug. 

And  the  porter,  explaining  that  at  his  master's  that 
evening  there  was  of  the  world,  flatly  refused  to  let  this 


SHARROW  247 

old  person,  whom  he  qualified  as  a  rustic,  to  interrupt  the 
festivities.  Poor  Dingle  tried  coaxing,  then  he  tried 
threats.  All  in  vain.  Auguste  was  a  young  man,  and  very 
strong. 

Presently  he  led  the  Englishman  to  the  extreme  edge  of 
the  Place,  and,  pointing  upwards,  said  more  gently,  for 
he  was  not  a  bad  fellow  and  the  light  showed  him  that 
the  rustic  had  a  good  face:  "Vous  voyez?" 

It  was  now  about  ten  o'clock,  and  the  night  was  very 
dark.  Around  the  stone  coping  that  edged  the  terrace 
Dingle  had  seen  from  Maggie  Penrose's  kitchen,  Chinese 
lanterns,  swung  on  a  wire,  moved  gently  in  a  light  breeze, 
and  beyond,  from  two  tall  open  windows  poured  the  sound 
of  voices. 

"I  see.    It's  a  party.    Ill  wait." 

Auguste  hesitated,  then  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  went 
back  to  his  pen-like  room  where  he  was  reading,  "Le  Cow- 
boy des  Montagues  Rocheuses." 

Obviously  there  was  no  harm  in  the  old  man,  who,  having 
gone  down  and  dismissed  his  cab,  sat  down  on  a  bench 
and  waited  with  the  patience  never  known  to  those  who 
dwell  in  cities. 

Ladies  came  out  on  to  the  terrace,  and  their  voices  were 
shrill.  They  were  joined  by  several  men,  and  they  all 
smoked,  and  all  laughed. 

Someone  in  the  lighted  room  was  singing  now ;  a  woman 's 
voice  rang  out,  nasal  and  bold.  When  the  song  ceased, 
everyone  clapped  and  laughed  loudly. 

Then  nearly  all  those  on  the  terrace  went  in.  Only  one 
man  remained,  and  one  lady.  The  steward  could  see  by 
the  swaying  light  from  the  lanterns,  the  glimmer  of  her 
bare  shoulders.  They  did  not  talk,  the  two;  they  sat 
quiet,  the  man's  arms  on  the  coping. 

Presently  a  church  clock,  very  far  off,  struck — eleven,  or 
twelve,  Dingle  lost  count,  and  did  not  know  which.  Then  in 


248  SHARROW 

one  of  the  windows  another  figure  appeared — a  man 's.  He 
nearly  fell  as  he  joined  the  man  and  the  woman  who  did 
not  talk;  he  caught  himself,  and  sat  down  with  his  back 
to  the  listener. 

In  the  breeze  the  lanterns  swayed  more  rapidly.  The 
woman  was  singing  again,  and  other  voices  joined  in. 

Suddenly  the  man  by  the  coping  put  up  his  hand  and 
tilted  the  lantern  over  his  head.  For  a  moment  nothing 
happened,  then  the  gaudy  paper  caught  fire,  and  flared  up. 
The  man  rose,  tore  it  down,  and  threw  it  over  the  edge 
of  the  terrace.  As  he  did  so,  the  fierce  light  danced  for 
one  second  over  his  face.  It  was  Sandy  Sharrow. 

"Mr.  Sandy!" 

The  man  started,  and  the  woman  near  him  rose  and 
with  him  peered  down  into  the  darkness. 

"Mr.  Sandy!" 

The  old  servant  stood  on  tip-toe  as  he  spoke,  and  then, 
in  the  great  silence — for  the  music  had  ceased — he  dis- 
tinctly heard  the  man  he  sought  cry  in  a  queer,  frightened 
voice,  "Great  God — did  some  one  call  me?" 

And  then  Dingle  spoke  again. 

"It  is  me,  John  Dingle,  sir.    May  I  come  up?" 


CHAPTER  XLII 

THE  old  man  stood  at  the  door  of  the  great  room,  blinking 
like  an  owl  in  the  bright  light. 

There  were  about  a  dozen  people  crowding  around  him; 
he  was,  to  them,  an  unexpected  delight,  a  curiosity,  and 
they  were  not  of  those  who  conceal  their  amusement. 

"Where  is  Mr. — Mr.  Alexander?"  he  asked,  a  little 
tremulously. 

And  a  young  woman  clad  in  black  lace  over  flesh-colored 
silk,  a  combination  that  led  to  extraordinary  effects,  laid 
her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"  'E  is — on  ze  terrace,"  she  said,  in  very  bad  English. 
"Come — allez-vous-en,  monstres — I  will  conduct  you." 

"Brava,  Lise!" 

"  Ecoute-moi  ga,  Use  qui  parle  Anglais!" 

They  all  laughed  and  talked  at  once. 

The  old  man  raised  his  grave,  worn  eyes,  and  looked  at 
them.  These  were  queer  people,  he  felt,  to  be  Mr.  Sandy's 
guests. 

Some  of  them  were  silenced  for  a  moment  by  his  glance, 
and  he  was  allowed  to  go  his  way  with  the  accomplished 
pink-and-black  Lise. 

The  walls  were  hung  in  pink  satin  brocade,  and  there 
were  flowers  everywhere.  The  floor  was  like  brown  ice. 
And  everywhere  was  light,  the  crude,  glaring  light  of  un- 
shaded electricity. 

Near  the  window  old  Dingle  slipped,  and  would  have 
fallen  had  not  Lise  caught  him.  He  thanked  her,  stood 
for  a  moment  to  recover  himself,  and  she  said  kindly: 

249 


250  SHARROW 

"Very  silly  peoples — never  mind,  Alexandre  glad  to 
see  you." 

He  was  grateful  to  her  and  smiled  at  her,  still  leaning 
on  his  arm. 

They  passed  out  through  the  window,  and  there  in  the 
cool  darkness,  leaning  against  the  coping,  stood  Sandy ;  the 
steward  recognized  his  big  shoulders. 

"Mr.  Sandy!"  the  old  man's  voice  broke  a  little,  as  he 
faltered  the  words. 

Sandy  did  not  move,  and  Lise  continued  to  advance. 

Then  suddenly  Sandy  sat  down  on  the  coping,  and 
covered  his  face  with  his  hands. 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Then,  at  a  noise  behind  them, 
Lise  turned,  and,  seeing  a  bouquet  of  curious  faces  at  the 
window,  slammed  the  shutters  as  if  she  meant  to  smash 
them  all. 

Presently  Sandy  spoke. 

"How  do  you  do,  Dingle,"  he  said,  holding  out  his  hand. 
He  spoke  so  strangely  that  the  old  man  turned  instinctively 
to  the  young  woman. 

"Eh,  out,"  she  explained  easily;  "it  is  late — at  this  hour 
he  is  always — how  says  one — drrrunk!" 

"Oh,  my  dear  God!"  whispered  the  old  man,  in  reverent 
anguish. 

"It  is  true;  D-Dingle — i-it  is  late.  Lise,"  he  added, 
sharply,  and  continued  to  speak  for  a  moment  in  rapid 
French. 

She  nodded, 

"Bien." 

She  drew  Dingle  to  a  chair,  and,  making  him  sit  down, 
laid  her  hand  on  his,  while  Sandy  walked  swiftly,  but  in 
jerks,  to  the  window  and  went  into  the  house. 

"  'E  come  back — 'e  drink  water — and  wash  'is  counte- 
nance. What  beautiful  weather  we  have  been  having 
lately!" 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  251 

This  abrupt  transition  to  excellent  English,  made  poor 
Dingle  fear  he  was  losing  his  reason. 

"Yes — beautiful,"  he  stammered,  staring  at  her. 

She  burst  out  into  a  funny  little  tinkle  of  laughter. 

"Ca,  c'est  du  livre,"  she  explained.  "Zat  I  learn  in  ze 
book  Alexandre  gave  me." 

They  sat  for  a  while  in  silence,  and  then  there  was  a 
sound  at  the  window. 

Sandy  came  slowly  towards  them,  holding  himself  very 
erect,  his  face  set.  His  hair,  the  old  man  saw,  was  wet,  and 
one  side  of  his  collar  was  limp.  He  had  been  washing  in 
cold  water. 

"I  am  better  now,"  he  began,  in  an  even,  rather  sing- 
song voice,  sitting  down.  "Now  then,  Dingle,  what  is  it? 
Is — Lord  Sharrow  dead?" 

Lise  listened  and  watched  eagerly,  her  little  black  eyes 
glittering  like  a  mouse 's  under  her  oddly  clumped  hair. 

"No,  Mr.  Sandy.  His  lordship  is — as  well  as  one  of  his 
great  age  could  hope  to  be." 

"Well,  then?" 

"Shall  I  speak  before— the  lady,  sir?" 

Sandy  glanced  at  her.  "Oh,  yes,"  he  said  carelessly, 
"she  doesn't  matter." 

"Then" — instinctively  the  old  servant  got  up.  "It  is 
this,  sir.  His  lordship  wishes  you  to  come  back  at  once, 
and  I  have  come  to — to — fetch  you." 

Sandy  gave  a  hoarse  laugh. 

' '  Aha !  I  was  sent  away ;  now  I  am  brought  back !  De- 
lighted. "Well — I  am  glad  to  have  seen  you,  Dingle,  but — 
you  must  go  back,  and  give — Lord  Sharrow  this  message. 
Tell  him,  that  I,  Alexander  Sharrow,  outlaw  and  scapegrace, 
would  not  soil  my  hand  by  touching  his,  nor  dishonor  my 
manhood  by  looking  into  his  treacherous  eyes.  There — that 
is  my  message." 

"But,  Mr.  Sandy,  I " 


252  SHARROW 

"Hold  your  tongue,  Dingle.  You  don't  know  what — 
what  you're  talking  about.  You  don't  know  what  he  did 
to  me,  he  and  that ' ' — he  used  a  word  the  steward  had  heard 
only  occasionally  in  Church,  in  the  First  Lesson. 

1 '  But  he  is  ninety-four  years  old. ' ' 

"What  the  devil  does  it  matter  to  me  if  he  is  nine 
hundred  years  old?"  asked  Sandy  with  such  ferocity  that 
Dingle  drew  back  from  him  with  horror.  "I  believe  he  is 
nine  hundred — or  nine  thousand  years  old.  Only  the  devil 
himself  could  plan  what  he  planned,  and  do  what  he  did. 
No,  go,  Dingle — you  are  an  honest  man,  and  a  good  one.  I 
am  sorry  you  have  to  serve  a — a  swine  like  Lord  Sharrow. ' ' 

High  up,  above  rows  of  dark  windows,  was  one  little  red 
light.  It  was  the  light  of  Maggie  Penrose's  kitchen.  The 
old  man  unconsciously  looked  towards  it,  and  Sandy 
saw. 

"There — just  where  your  eyes  are  now,"  he  went  on,  his 
eyes  glaring,  "is  where  she  lives.  And  even  now,  probably, 
she  is  looking  down  at  my  lights  here.  She  saw  my  guests, 
heard  my  music — and  it  tears  her  to  pieces.  A  year  ago 
to-night  I  found  her  out,  her  and  the  old  demon  who  dared 
to  send  you  to  me.  And  I  told  her  what  she  was,  and  left 
her.  And  if  the  two  of  them  lay  rotting  in  a  ditch,  and  I 
«ould  save  them  by  raising  a  finger — they  should  rot,  and 
kites  should  feed  on  them!" 

He  strode  away  to  the  further  end  of  the  terrace,  and 
stood  there,  his  back  turned  to  the  old  man  and  the 
woman,  who  in  the  faint  light  looked  as  if  her  nakedness 
were  only  veiled  by  black  lace. 

"Go  now,"  the  woman  whispered,  "go  quickly,  M'sieur. 
He  is  mad  to-night.  Whatever  you  wish  he  will  not  make. 
He  is  furieux — but  yes,  furious. ' ' 

But  Dingle  shook  off  her  hand  and  rose. 

"Mr.  Sandy, "he  called. 

Sandy  turned.    Someone  inside  was  playing  a  waltz,  and 


S  H  A  E  R  0  W  253 

through  the  slits  of  the  shutters  odd  slices  of  shadow 
moved  in  the  lantern  light.  The  guests  were  dancing. 

"Please  go,  Dingle,"  Sandy  said. 

"No.     You  must  come  to  Sharrow." 

"I  will  never  come  to  Sharrow."  But  he  turned  and 
walked  slowly  toward  the  old  man  who  summoned  him 
with  such  strange  peremptoriness ;  between  them,  the  girl, 
in  her  indecent  black  draperies. 

"Your  great-uncle  cannot  live  long " 

"Ah,  he  wishes  to  make  his  soul,  is  that  it?  He  wants 
my  forgiveness  ?  Tell  him  he  may  ask  for  that  again  when 
he  has  roasted  in  Hell  for  a  thousand  years " 

"Mr.  Sandy,"  Dingle  said,  after  a  pause,  "I  have  come 
to  tell  you  that  you  are  your  great-uncle's  heir." 

The  waltz  went  on,  and  several  women  laughed  at  once. 
The  shadow-slices  danced  more  wildly. 

Sandy  did  not  speak. 

"You — you  are  to  be  Lord  Sharrow,  when  that  old  man 
dies." 

"Are  you  mad,  Dingle?  No,  you  are  not  mad.  I  am 
drunk.  That's  it,"  the  younger  man  said,  standing  still. 

"You  are  not  drunk,  and  I  am  not  mad.  It  is  true. 
Master  Sydney  found  some  paper  in  an  old  medicine  chest 
— it's  a  marriage  certificate." 

Sandy  opened  the  shutters  and  stood  in  the  doorway. 
He  said  something  very  quietly,  and  it  was  met  with  a 
shout  of  laughter;  he  said  it  again,  and  the  music  ceased. 
He  waited  for  what  seemed  to  be  a  long  time,  and  the 
sound  of  voices  within  gradually  died  away. 

Then  he  came  back  to  the  edge  of  the  terrace. 

"They  have  gone,"  he  said.  '"Now,  then,  Dingle,  tell 
me  that  again." 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

THEY  talked,  the  two  men,  till  nearly  five  o'clock,  the 
mouse-eyed  Lise  sitting  by  them.  When  two  o'clock  struck, 
and  the  old  man  shuddered,  they  went  into  the  house,  and, 
crossing  the  ballroom-like  apartment,  settled  themselves 
in  a  small  shabby  room  like  a  study. 

Here  Lise  sat  on  the  floor,  her  head  resting,  uninvited, 
against  Sandy's  knee.  Sometimes  she  dropped  off  to  sleep, 
and  then  her  quaint  little  face,  under  its  liquid  powder 
and  its  rouge,  looked  almost  like  that  of  a  child. 

In  a  basket  in  a  corner  an  old  white  dog  lay  asleep. 
He  was  a  grandson  of  Winker,  Sandy  explained,  shortly. 

Over  and  over  the  old  man  told  the  story  of  the  dis- 
covery of  the  marriage  certificate. 

"They  had  been  married  secretly  in  Switzerland  six 
months  before  the  German  marriage  they  went  through  for 
the  sake  of  the  daughter  who  was  coming.  They  doubted 
the  legality  of  the  Swiss  marriage,  it  seems,  but  it,  and  not 
the  other,  was  all  right.  I  don 't  know  all  the  details — but 
it  is  quite  certain.  Mr.  Bolsover  himself  went  to  the  place. 
I  think,  sir,  you  would  not  be  quite  so  hard  on  the  old 
gentleman  if  you  knew  how  glad  he  was.  Why,  when  he 
told  me,  he — he  broke  down,  Mr.  Sandy.  'Is  lordship 
cried!" 

Sandy's  grim  face  did  not  relax.  There  seemed  to  be  no 
pity  in  him. 

He  had  changed  far  more  than  the  ten  years  which 
had  passed  seemed  to  justify.  His  red  hair  was  as  red 

254 


SHARROW  255 

as  ever,  but  it  had  receded  from  his  brow — and  his  eyes 
were  set  in  deep  hollows,  and  surrounded  with  wrinkles 
that  no  man  of  thirty-three  should  have. 

But  it  was  his  mouth  that  made  his  old  friend's  heart 
ache. 

Always  a  thin  mouth,  and  long,  it  now  tnmed  down  at 
the  corners  as  if  it  could  never  move,  and  the  corners 
were  buried  in  a  fold  that  extended  from  his  nose  ,to  his 
chin. 

His  always  slightly  underhung  lowrer  jaw  protruded  now 
even  when  his  face  was  in  repose,  and  between  his  eyes  was 
stamped  a  sign  like  a  small,  inverted  horseshoe.  He  looked 
fifty,  and  he  looked  as  hard  and  cruel  as  the  old  lord 
himself. 

Once  his  face  softened  suddenly.  It  was  when  the 
steward  chanced  to  mention  Syd's  joy  in  the  discovery. 

' '  How  is  my  brother  1 "  he  asked. 

"He  is  a — a  beautiful  young  man.    And — good,  sir." 

' '  Yes,  yes,  he 's  a  good  boy.  I — I  have  not  seen  him  since 
the  30th  of  May,  1893.  That  was  in  the  Vosges." 

"I  know.  He — he  was  very  sorry,  sir,  that — that  you 
did  not  write,"  ventured  Dingle. 

"I  could  not  write." 

"I  see,  sir.  Since — since  Mrs.  Sharrow's  death,  he  has 
lived  in  Italy — he  is  very  fond  of  music " 

Sandy,  who  was  softly  pulling  a  lock  of  Lise's  hair, 
much  as  if  it  had  been  a  pet  dog's  tail,  looked  up. 

"Ah — then  my  mother  is  dead?"  he  asked,  calmly. 

"She  died  in  the  autumn  of  '93." 

"Poor  mother!"  his  voice  was  gentle. 

"Yes." 

There  was  a  pause,  after  which  Sandy  said,  suddenly: 

"Dingle,  how  did  you  find  me?" 

"Miss  Penrose  told  me,  sir.  I  met  her  in  the  street, 
quite  by  chance." 


256  SHARROW 

"Ah!  My  great — Lord  Sharrow  will  be  pleased  to  hear 
news  of  her.  They  were  friends — and  allies. ' ' 

"Mr.  Sandy,  I  don't  quite  understand,  and  I  have  no 
right  to  ask  you  to  explain  things  to  me,  but — it  is  painful 
to  me,  as  an  old  man  who  knew  you  as  a  little  child,  to 
hear  you — sneer  like  that." 

Over  the  sleeping  mouse,  Sandy  stretched  out  his  hand, 
on  which  the  green  ring  sparkled. 

1 '  I  beg  your  pardon,  Dingle.  I  have  been  rude.  But — I 
am  not  a  good  man,  nor  a  pleasant  companion.  Life  has 
taught  me  to  be  a  bully  and  a — a  selfish  beast.  But  to  you 
I  would  be  kind  if  I  could.  Listen.  She  is  asleep,  poor 
child — I  will  tell  you.  You  will  not  repeat  this  to  any  one. 
Ever?" 

"No,  Mr.  Sandy." 

"Well,  then,  here  is  my  story.  It  won't  excuse  me — 
no — nothing  external  excuses  anybody.  But — it  will  help 
to  explain  me,  perhaps." 

The  glaring  electric  light,  unwavering,  unbeautiful,  un- 
poetic,  streamed  down  on  his  hard,  ravaged  face,  and  on 
the  tawdry  figure  of  the  sleeping  woman.  In  his  basket 
the  old  dog  growled  in  his  dreams.  The  city  was  very  still. 
And  Sandy  Sharrow  told  his  story. 

"When  you  saw  me  last,  Dingle — the  day  I  came  to  tell 
Sally  and  you  of — of  my  engagement — I  was  a  boy  of 
twenty- four.  I  wasn't  a  young  girl,  but  I  was  a  decent  boy 
enough,  and  I  had  in  my  heart  something  that  would  have 
made  of  me  a  more  than  decent  man.  You  know  what  I 
mean.  You  know,  I  dare  say,  of  my  great-uncle's  stipula- 
tions about  our  engagement. 

"Well,  I  distrusted  him;  even  then  I  distrusted  him, 
but — I  loved  my  brother,  and  I  was  too  happy  to  allow 
a  vague  feeling  against  my  great-uncle  to  upset  my  broth- 
er's life.  Then  there  was  my  brother's  governess. 

'*!  had  flirted  with  her  a  little;  I  kissed  her  once,  but 


SHARROW  257 

I  meant  no  harm,  and  once  I  had  seen — Miss  Wymondham, 
I  begged  her,  Miss  Penrose  's,  pardon.  I  never  touched  her 
again  until — afterwards.  Then  comes  what  those  two 
did."  He  paused,  drew  a  deep  breath,  and  went  on,  the 
determination  to  speak,  calmly  written  on  his  face. 

"They  put  their  heads  together  to  break  off  my  en- 
gagement. And,  being  clever,  they  found  a  clever  way  to 
do  it.  I  suppose  you  have  not  been  told?  No?  They 
made  me  drink.  It  was  ingenious.  It  was  born  in  me  to 
love  spirit — brandy.  As  a  child  I  loved  the  smell  and  taste 
of  it.  And  once,  when  I  was  under  twenty,  I  drank  too 
much.  This  I  told — Miss  Wymondham,  because  I  thought 
I  ought  to.  Then  Miss  Penrose  set  to  work.  She  fright- 
ened Miss  Wymondham.  And  after  that,  the  devil  him- 
self, apparently,  came  to  the  rescue  of  Lord  Sharrow  and 
his  friend. 

"When  my  brother  had  typhoid  fever  I  once  drank  too 
much  and  went  to  sleep  in  the  library.  This  was  told  to 
Miss  Wymondham.  It  was  exaggerated,  of  course.  She 
wrote  and  asked  me,  and  I  acknowledged  it.  Even  now 
I'm  not  a  liar,  and  in  those  days — I  always  told  the  truth. 

"And  finally,  when  Miss  Wymondham  came  to  visit  my 
mother,  their  opportunity  came." 

He  broke  off  for  a  minute  as  Lise  turned,  grunting  sleep- 
ily, and  leaned  her  other  cheek  against  his  knee. 

"I  had  been  sitting  up  for  six  weeks,  I  had  been  nearly 
out  of  my  mind  with  anxiety,  and — I  was  twenty-four. 
For  days  I  had  had  such  a  headache  that  I  could  hardly 
see.  I  can  remember,  even  now,  how  things  seemed  to  wave 
when  I  looked  at  them.  I  was  ill.  Good  God,  if  it  had  been 
Syd  they  did  it  to,  I  should — however,  it  was  not  Syd.  Well, 
Maggie  Penrose  bided  her  time ;  she  came  to  my  room  and 
gave  me  a  stiff  drink  of  brandy  while  I  was  dressing.  And 
after  dinner — I  had  quarrelled  with  Miss  Wymondham — 
I  took  more.  I  took  enough  to  deaden  the  pain,  and  then 


258  SHARROW 

— remembering,  mind  you — sat  down  with  my  dog,  to  wait 
till  I  could  go  down  and — apologize  to  Miss  Wymondham. 
Then  Maggie  came  to  my  room.  She  gave  me  more — she 
made  me  drunk.  I  kept  on  drinking.  And,  finally,  an  hour 
later,  I  heard  her  signal — she  was  playing.  She  was  play- 
ing a  little  melody  that  had  always  been  associated,"  he 
went  on,  dreamily,  as  if  to  himself,  "with  Viola.  Drunk  as 
I  was,  I  recognized  it — well,  her  playing  was  the  signal  for 
me  to  go  down  and  apologize.  So  down  I  went,  so  drunk 
I  could  hardly  stand,  and  made  a  fool  of  myself  before — 
the  woman  who  had  promised  to  be  my  wife. ' ' 

"Poor  girl — poor  young  lady!"  murmured  the  steward, 
softly. 

Sandy  stared  at  him  with  haggard  eyes.  "Yes,  poor  girl! 
But  also — poor  boy!  Remember,  Dingle,  I — adored  her. 
And  I  believed  her  to  be  as  good  as  God.  And  she  wrote 
me  a  letter  and  called  me — a  sot.  So  I  went  away,  and 
made  myself  what  she  believed  me  to  be.  I  was  a  fool,  but 
— I  was  twenty-four." 

The  dog  in  the  basket  scratched  himself;  a  clock  struck. 

"  Twenty- four.  I  rushed  away  as  two  years  before  I  had 
rushed  away  from — Sharrow.  Only  this  time,  Maggie 
Penrose  came  with  me." 

"Ah!" 

' '  Yes.  She  didn  't  tell  you  ?  She  was, ' '  he  added,  j  ustly, 
"very  good  to  me.  I  was  as  miserable  a  young  ass  as  ever 
lived,  and  as  reckless.  She  did  her  best,  once  she  had  got 
me  away  from  Viola,  to  save  me.  But  I  would  not  be 
saved.  And  so  I  wallowed  with  the  swine.  Some  swine 
have  excellent  manners  and  remarkably  well-trained  minds. 
I  saw  much,  even  learned  much.  Also,  I  drank  much." 

He  laughed  bitterly. 

"But — your  brother?  He  came  to  see  you  every  sum- 
mer  " 

"Yes.     He — does  not  know.     I  have   not   been  weak, 


SHARROW  259 

Dingle — I  have  been  bad.  When  I  chose  I — stopped.  And 
Syd — I  have  not  hurt  him.  He  does  not  know." 

After  a  pause  he  went  on  in  a  different  voice.  "A 
year  ago  to-night,  quite  by  chance,  I  found  a  letter  of  Mr. 
Bolsover's  to  Miss  Penrose.  It  was  written  by  Lord  Shar- 
row's  wish,  and  it — betrayed  things.  I  then  searched  her 
papers  and  found  other  letters,  a  round  dozen,  and  a  little 
jade  ornament  he  gave  her  to  ratify  their  bargain.  Why 
she  had  kept  them,  God  only  knows — women  do  queer 
things — but  there  they  were.  And  that — is  the  end  of  my 
story. ' ' 

He  rose,  and  opened  the  window.  It,  too,  looked  out  on 
the  terrace. 

The  sky  was  already  growing  lighter,  and  the  trees  in  the 
garden  beyond  showed  as  individuals  against  its  pallor;  a 
bird  chirped. 

Sandy  walked  out  without  a  word,  and  stood  in  the  chill 
dawn.  Presently,  the  old  man,  who  stood  behind  him, 
noticed  the  red  light  in  the  high  room  opposite  sink,  rise, 
and  go  out. 

"You  see?"  asked  Sandy.  "She  is  going  to  bed.  She 
is  tired  of  watching  me." 

"Poor  soul!" 

"Ay,  poor  soul.  She  has  ruined  me,  Dingle.  You  have 
come  too  late.  I  believed  in  her.  She  was  good  to  me  in 
my  desolation,  and  she — she  cared  for  me  so  much  that 
I  grew  fond  of  her." 

Another  bird  stirred  and  chirped,  and  somewhere  a  cock 
crowed.  Sandy,  his  voice  clear,  his  face  held  up  to  the 
sky,  seemed  purified  by  the  dawn. 

Behind  him  lay  the  past  years,  and  by  his  chair,  sleeping, 
the  poor  Lise. 

Before  him,  the  growing  light. 

The  old  man  laid  his  hand  on  the  young  man's  arm. 

' '  And  now,  I  am  not  fit  for  Sharrow. ' ' 


260  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

"You  are,  you  are,  Mr.  Sandy,"  protested  Dingle,  tears 
running  down  his  old  cheeks.  "There  is  time  yet " 

After  a  pause  he  added,  tremulously:  'You  won't  re- 
fuse to  come?  You  will  come?" 

Sandy  turned,  and  held  out  his  hand.  "Yes,  I  will 
come, ' '  he  answered  gravely.  ' '  I  must  come. ' ' 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

ONE  day  in  November,  a  man  walked  into  Rome  by  the 
Porto  del  Popolo. 

He  was  very  dusty,  his  clothes  were  patched,  torn,  and 
weather-worn.  His  boots,  which  showed  signs  of  having 
been  cobbled  many  times,  were  nearly  worn  out. 

Strapped  across  his  back  was  a  small  knapsack,  and 
under  his  hat  he  wore  a  colored  handkerchief,  knotted  into 
a  kind  of  cap.  He  wore  a  rough,  unkempt  beard. 

Two  priests,  meeting  him,  bowed  courteously;  obviously 
a  pilgrim,  and  as  such,  meriting  respect. 

Inside  the  Gate,  the  pilgrim  stood  still,  looking  around 
him  with  the  air  of  one  glad  to  arrive  at  his  journey's 
end. 

It  was  a  glorious  day ;  the  trees  on  the  Pincio  were  still 
fully  leaved,  and  near  the  obelisk  stood  a  girl  selling 
flowers. 

Seeing  him,  she  came  forward,  holding  out  a  bunch  of 
violets,  and  he,  laughing,  showing  strong  white  teeth,  gave 
her  a  small  piece  of  silver  and  drew  the  little  bouquet 
through  his  buttonhole,  where  it  made  in  its  freshness  a 
contrast  to  the  rest  of  his  belongings. 

He  walked  slowly  across  the  Square  to  the  right,  and  sat 
down  outside  a  cafe  of  the  humblest  sort. 

Although  it  was  November,  a  striped  awning  still  hung 
over  the  rush-bottomed  chairs  and  wooden  tables.  The 
summer  had  been  long,  and  the  autumn  a  rare  one. 

"A  glass  of  est-est-est,"  the  wayfarer  told  the  waiter,  in 
very  fair,  but  plainly  foreign  Italian. 

261 


262  SHARROW 

Then  he  sat  resting,  sipping  the  delicious  wine  made  fa- 
mous long  ago  by  the  German  bishop  who  drank  so  much 
on  his  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  City  that  they  had  to  bury 
him  on  the  way. 

It  was  eleven  o'clock,  and  Domenico,  the  padrone,  was 
kept  busy,  for  his  wine  is  good,  and  wise  men  in  Italy 
go  where  the  wine  is  good,  even  to  humble  trattorie  like 
this  one. 

Two  officers,  brilliant  as  parrots  in  their  different  uni- 
forms, sat  at  a  table  near  the  foreigner. 

He  displeased  them  for  two  reasons:  he  was  obviously 
very  poor,  and  he  was  a  foreigner. 

A  rich  American  or  Englishman  is  welcome  in  Rome,  but 
foreigners  in  ragged  clothes  and  broken  boots  are  not  be- 
loved, the  Italian  market  being  already  glutted  with  such 
objects  of  home  manufacture. 

So  the  officers  discussed  the  mascalzone  as  he  sipped  his 
wine. 

An  old  woman  carrying  a  baby  came  and  partook  of  a 
red  syrup  in  a  thick  glass;  a  wild-haired  German  painter, 
with  very  large  red  hands,  drank  half  a  flask  of  chianti  in 
one  breath,  and  departed. 

Then  came  two  Englishmen,  sitting  down  near  our  pil- 
grim and  ordering,  as  he  had  done,  the  yellow  wine  of  the 
bishop. 

"Delicious  stuff,  isn't  it?"  the  elder  of  the  two  said. 

The  shabby  pedestrian  smiled  as  he  sipped  his  own.  It 
was  to  him  so  very  delicious  after  his  seven-hour  tramp 
that  morning. 

"Exquisite!  I'd  like  to  take  some  home  with  me,  only 
they  say  it  doesn't  bear  transportation." 

The  pilgrim  set  his  glass  down  suddenly.  He  could 
not  see  the  speaker's  face,  but  he  knew  his  voice. 

After  a  while  the  voice  went  on,  "Look  at  that  poor 
chap,  Marston,  sound  asleep ! ' ' 


SHARROW  263 

"Yes.  He  looks  dead  beat.  Is  he  a  tramp,  I  wonder,  or 
a  'holy  pilgrim'?  They  are  sometimes  hard  to  tell  apart!" 

The  elder  man  laughed  as  he  spoke,  but  the  younger  went 
on:  "I  don't  know — that  coat  was  made  for  him — it's  well 
cut,  and  it  fits  him  even  now.  Come  down  in  the  world,  I 
dare  say."  Then  he  added  lightly:  "Poor  devil!  Come 
along,  the  duchess  will  hate  us  if  we're  late  for  lunch " 

When  their  voices  and  footsteps  had  died  away,  the  man 
they  had  discussed  raised  his  head.  His  lean,  burnt  face 
was  wet  with  tears. 

Presently  he  made  his  way  down  the  Via  de  Babuino  and 
turning  off  it,  engaged  a  room  at  a  small  inn. 

He  sent  a  servant  to  the  station,  and  when  the  man  re- 
turned with  a  small,  shabby  trunk,  no  more  was  seen  of 
the  guest  for  an  hour.  Then  there  appeared  at  the  bureau 
of  the  hotel  a  gentleman  dressed  in  dark  blue,  brown  boots 
polished  to  the  color  and  gloss  of  horse-chestnuts,  and  an 
old  Panama  hat. 

The  padrona  looked  up.  "The  gentleman  wishes  to 
see "  she  suggested,  staring  at  this  unusual  caller. 

"I  am  the  gentleman  of  No.  4,"  he  answered  her,  cour- 
teously. "I  walked  to  Rome — that  is  why  I  was  so  shabby 
— and  now  I  go  out  to  seek  a  barber." 

The  old  woman's  eyes  flashed. 

"A  holy  pilgrimage!"  she  cried,  for  she  was  old  enough 
to  be  religious.  And  she  crossed  herself  in  congratula- 
tion. 

The  gentleman  held  his  beard  in  his  hand,  and  smiled 
at  her,  a  strange  expression  in  his  eyes.  "Yes — a  kind 
of  pilgrimage,"  he  assented,  slowly.  "Without  doubt,  a 
kind  of  pilgrimage." 

Half  an  hour  later  he  returned,  showing,  where  the 
beard  had  been,  a  reddish  jaw  and  chin  that  contrasted 
strongly  with  the  brown  of  the  upper  part  of  his  face. 
He  paid  his  bill,  made  his  adieux  with  the  leisurely  polite- 


264  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

ness  of  one  who  has  travelled  much  in  polite  countries,  and, 
his  box  on  a  cab,  went  his  way. 

Mr.  Alexander  Sharrow  was  well  received  at  the  hotel, 
where  he  had  already  stayed  more  than  once,  and  made  an 
excellent  luncheon. 

The  mditre  d'hotel,  hovering  around  with  the  wine  card, 
was  dismissed. 

"No,  thanks,  Paolo — I  don't  want  any  wine." 

But  Paolo  was  of  those  gifted  mditres  d'hotel  who  never 
forget  the  tastes  of  a  good  customer. 

"Should  I  forget  that,  sir?  I,  Paolo?  No— it  is  the 
Tre  Stelle — the  Three  Star  of  Martell  that  il  Signore  likes. 
It  was  to  ask  if  I  am  to  fetch  a  large  or  a  small  bottle." 

Sandy  shook  his  head.  "No,  I  don't  want  either, 
thanks."  And  Paolo  was  convinced  that  only  illness  could 
have  wrought  this  fearful  change. 

Two  hours  later  Sandy  arrived  at  the  villa  on  the  Janicu- 
lum. 

While  he  waited  in  the  drawing-room,  he  stood  for  some 
minutes  in  front  of  a  large  mirror.  He  saw  a  lean,  weather- 
beaten  face,  apparently  the  face  of  a  man  close  on  fifty,  but 
it  looked  the  face  of  a  healthy  man  of  close  on  fifty.  The 
eyes  were  clear  under  their  bushy  brows,  the  grim  mouth 
looked  as  though  it  could  smile. 

"A  good  deal  better,"  he  told  himself,  sadly,  "but- 
Then  the  door  opened,  and  Syd  came  flying  in,  in  a  velvet 
coat  and  purple  leather  slippers. 

"Sandy!  My  dear  old  Sandy!  I  was  asleep  when  the 
man  told  me,  and  I  couldn't  believe  him — so  I  rushed 
down,  just  as  I  was.  If  it  hadn't  been  you,  I  should  have 
murdered  whomever  it  was!" 

He  held  Sandy's  hand  in  both  his,  and  then,  with  a 
little  gurgle  of  laughter,  flung  his  arms  around  the  elder 
man's  neck  and  kissed  him. 

"Now  then,  if  you're  ashamed  of  me  for  that — but  you 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  265 

aren't.  It  has  been  such  ages.  Sit  down,  dear  old  chap, 
and  tell  me  all  about  it.  Where  on  earth  have  you  been 
all  this  time?" 

Sydney  Sharrow  was  nineteen  years  old,  and  a  very  beau- 
tiful boy.  He  was  slim,  and  his  shoulders  were  too  nar- 
row, but  he  walked  well,  with  a  little  swagger  that  be- 
came him.  And  his  head  was,  in  its  way,  wonderful.  There 
was  in  it — with  its  soft  dark  hair  which,  when  he  was  warm 
or  there  was  rain  in  the  air,  curled  round  his  forehead  like  a 
child's,  his  golden-brown  eyes,  and  the  mellow  tone  of  his 
skin — little  or  nothing  of  the  Sharrows. 

His  mother  had  always  declared  him  to  be  like  her 
people,  but  he  was  not  at  all  like  her. 

And  now,  since  Sandy  had  seen  him,  he  had  grown,  and 
on  his  short  lip  grew  a  tiny  moustache  not  nearly  so  big 
as  one  of  his  brother 's  eyebrows. 

Sandy  studied  him  as  they  talked,  and  presently  Sandy 's 
face  had  so  melted  into  happiness  that  the  boy  himself 
noticed  it. 

"That's  right,"  he  said,  "let  your  old  face  do  as  it 
likes.  It  wants  to  be  cheerful;  you  seem  to  be  holding 
it  back.  Laugh,  and  be  happy,  for  to-morrow  you  die." 

"  Do  I  ?  I  hope  not, ' '  the  elder  man  was  suddenly  very 
grave. 

' '  Nonsense !  I  'm  rather  given  to  cynicism, ' '  the  boy  de- 
clared, deeply  interested  in  himself;  "but — I  suppose  all 
musicians  are." 

"How  goes  the  voice?" 

"It's  good,  Sandy,  it  really  is.  The  maestro  seems  de- 
lighted with  my  progress.  I  work  awfully  hard,  too. 
Hardly  ever  go  out  at  night,  and — that  sort  of  thing.  One 
has  to  respect  one's  moyen,"  he  added  with  a  touch  of 
importance. 

' '  Of  course.  I  suppose  you  have  to  be  careful,  too,  what 
you  eat — and  drink?" 


His  voice  maintained  a  careful  level,  and  he  looked  at 
his  own  brown  hand  as  he  spoke. 

Syd  smiled.  ' '  Rather !  No  nuts,  you  know,  nor  vinegar 
— sweets  don't  matter.  As  to  drink — I  loathe  spirits  and 
wine,  don't  you?" 

There  was  a  short  pause. 

"Yes,  I  loathe  spirits  and  wine.  I  have  given  them  up. 
To-day,  however,  I  took  a  glass  of  wine  when  I  arrived. 
I  went  to  Ciarro's  and  tried  a  wine  I  used  to  like.  It  is 
called  est-est " 

Syd's  eyes  grew  enormous  over  the  marvel  of  this  co- 
incidence. 

"You  did?  Why,  Sandear,  how  wonderful!  So  did  I! 
I,  too,  went  to  Ciarro's — with  Charles  Marston,  the  painter 
— and  I,  too,  drank  est-est-estl  What  a  funny  thing!  Sup- 
pose we  had  met  there.  How  small  even  Rome  is,  and  it  is 
much  bigger  than  the  world!" 

Then  Sandy  told  his  plans.  He  had  come  to  Rome  on 
purpose  to  see  his  brother,  and  was  going  back — home,  in 
two  or  three  days.  Would  Syd  go  with  him? 

No,  Syd  couldn't.  He  must  stand  by  the  maestro  or 
the  maestro  would  not  stand  by  him.  But  he  would  come 
for  their  birthday,  and  the  holidays.  Was  Sandy  not 
thrilled  to  death  by  finding  himself  to  be  the  heir? 
He — Syd — had  nearly  gone  out  of  his  mind  when  Mary 
wrote  to  him  about  it,  and  then,  when  they  couldn't 
find  Sandy,  Syd  had  really  thought  his  mind  would  give 
way. 

4 '  Where  were  you  all  the  time  ? "  he  added,  glowing  with 
fresh  curiosity. 

"Like  everybody  who  is  searched  for,  I  was  ridiculously 
near  at  hand.  Old  Dingle  found  me  in  Paris!" 

"No!" 

"Yes,  he  did.  By  the  way,  you  say  Mary  wrote  to  you 
about  it.  Mary  Wymondham,  I  suppose  ? ' ' 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  267 

"Rather.  She  always  writes  to  me.  We're  great  pals. 
She's  a  dear,  Mary  is." 

"Not  married?" 

"Not  she.  Hasn't  time,  I  daresay.  Since  the  Vicar 
died,  and  Viola  married — I  suppose  you  had  cards? — she 
lives  in  the  doctor's — Gill's,  you  know.  Gill  has  built  him- 
self a  villa,  if  you  please,  on  the  Dipwater  Road — a  real 
proper  villa,  with  tiles  and  turrets,  and  machicolations  and 
things!" 

Sandy  was  silent.  He  had  not  known  that  Viola  Wy- 
mondham  was  married,  and  even  now  the  news  hurt  him. 
He  no  longer  loved  her,  but  she  was  a  part  of  his  youth, 
and  she,  too,  was  gone. 

' '  A  villa, ' '  he  repeated  mechanically.  ' '  How  awful !  So 
Mary  lives  in  the  Corner  House.  A  charming  little  place ! 
I  remember  stealing  plums  in  the  garden." 


CHAPTER  XLV 

SANDY  SHARROW,  in  his  self-inflicted  pilgrimage  to  Rome, 
was  not  actuated  by  religious  motives.  Although,  when  he 
had  made  the  decision,  the  rather  absurd  side  of  which  he 
plainly  saw,  all  that  was  romantic  in  him,  as  well  as  prac- 
tical, rose  to  greet  it.  The  reasons  for  this  were  simple. 

For  the  past  year,  ever  since  his  discovery  of  Maggie's 
connivance  with  his  great-uncle  to  separate  him  from 
Viola,  his  downward  course  had  continued  with  greatly 
accelerated  speed,  and  he  had  deteriorated  physically  as 
well  as  morally,  with  frightful  rapidity. 

Having  lost  Viola  not  only  as  a  wife,  but,  what  to  a 
man  of  his  temperament  was  even  worse,  also  as  an  ideal, 
he  had  rioted  wildly  for  many  months,  as  he  had  declared 
to  Maggie  his  intention  of  doing. 

He  was  young  enough  to  take  a  savage  joy  in  revenging 
himself  on  Fate  by  not  only  giving  full  rein  to,  but  in 
cultivating,  as  well,  the  worst  impulses  within  him. 

If  the  fever  that  seemed  that  last  night  in  Guelph 
Square  to  be  attacking  him  had  really  done  so,  the  chances 
are  that  it  would,  in  the  course  of  its  run,  have  burnt 
the  madness  out  of  him,  and  left  him,  as  it  has  left  many 
a  man,  too  weak  for  anything  but  mild  resignation. 

But  by  some  freak  of  the  gods,  not  his  madness  but  his 
fever  passed  away,  as  if  the  force  of  his  will  to  ruin  him- 
self vanquished  the  mere  bodily  ill;  and  the  day  he  and 
Maggie  Penrose  reached  Paris  he  disappeared,  and  was 
gone  for  nearly  a  month. 

Finally,  when  he  did  come  back,  he  found  Maggie  pale, 

268 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  199 

And  then  he  caught  her  up,  carried  her  upstairs,  and 
laid  her  on  her  bed. 

That  had  been  a  moment  that  repaid  her  for  days  and 
days  of  weary  watching  over  Syd. 

And  now,  when  he  was  really  becoming  fond  of  her, 
and  her  plot  beginning,  she  knew,  to  have  its  due  effect  on 
Viola,  the  gods  had  sent  Viola  to  Guelph  Square. 

Maggie  felt  that  the  gods  were  on  her  side. 


SANDY,  in  his  rather  selfish  joy  in  having  Viola  to  him- 
self, made  a  grave  mistake.  Mary's  presence  might,  at 
that  juncture  in  his  life,  have  made  a  huge  difference  to 
him  and  saved  him  much  suffering. 

But  Mary  fussed  and  tried  to  control  both  people  and 
events,  so  he  rejoiced  that  Mary  was  safely  at  the 
Vicarage,  and  refused  to  allow  his  mother  to  invite  the 
elder  girl.  He  wanted  to  have  Viola  for  his  very  own  for  a 
few  days,  as  later  she  would  always  be. 

He  felt  for  Mary  the  slight  current  of  irritability  that 
is  often  the  effect  of  one  strong  nature  upon  another,  even 
before  their  two  wills  have  ever  come  into  conflict. 

And  thus,  even  the  elder  girl's  daily  letter  to  her  sis- 
ter annoyed  him. 

He  was  extremely  tired  those  early  days  of  Viola's 
visit,  for  he  had  been  under  a  tremendous  mental  strain 
for  the  past  three  months,  and  it  now  began  to  tell  on  him. 

"What  on  earth  does  Mary  find  to  write  about  every 
day  that  makes  you  unhappy,  beloved?"  he  asked,  one 
morning,  before  his  mother  and  Maggie  had  come  into 
the  ugly  dining  room. 

"It  doesn't  make  me  unhappy,  Sandy,"  she  faltered. 
She  could  not  tell  him  that  Mary's  letters  always  exhorted 
her  to  watch  over  him,  and  to  believe  in  him.  Poor  Mary 's 
letters  did  not  irritate  Viola;  they  bored  her  by  continu- 
ally reminding  her  of  a  thing  she  wished  to  forget. 

During  the  three  days  that  had  already  elapsed  of  her 

200 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  271 

But  Maggie  dreaded  Syd's  visits,  for  each  one  was  suc- 
ceeded by  a  period  of  unspeakable  horror  to  her.  ' '  Making 
up  for  lost  time,"  he  called  it  in  dreary  jest. 

His  terrible  heritage,  nursed  by  his  own  will,  would  have 
killed  him  long  since  but  for  his  brother  and  Maggie.  Her 
efforts  to  save  him  were  not  altogether  a  failure,  for  he 
was  a  kind  man  by  nature,  and  her  misery  grieved  him. 

' '  All  right ;  I  '11  be  good  now  for  a  fortnight, ' '  he  would 
say  occasionally,  and  then  they  would  walk  or  drive,  or 
go  for  a  journey  somewhere;  and  he,  during  the  time,  con- 
fined himself  rigorously  to  whatever  amount  of  brandy  he 
had  decided  to  allow  himself. 

These  periods  were  her  only  reward  for  what  she  had 
done,  and  they  were,  at  best,  a  tragic  one.  She  loved 
him,  and  she  had  wrought  his  ruin.  That  was  the  thought 
that  never  left  her. 

One  thing  was  spared  her.  She  was  not  a  very  jealous 
woman,  and  if  she  had  been,  the  women  in  Sandy's  life 
would  hardly  have  stirred  her  jealousy;  they  were  so  ut- 
terly indifferent  to  him,  he  so  soon  tired  of  them,  so 
frankly  despised  them. 

"You  are  the  only  woman  in  the  world  I  care  a  rap 
about, ' '  was  a  phrase  of  his  that  was  music  to  her.  And  it 
was  the  truth. 

So  when  he  found,  through  the  hazard  of  a  fallen  letter, 
what  the  only  woman  for  whom  he  eared  a  rap  had  done, 
his  blaze  of  scorn  and  hate  passed  over  like  a  fire,  burning 
and  blackening  her. 

And  when  he  had  gone,  she  was  alone  in  the  waste 
made  by  her  own  hands. 

She  was  to  be  pitied,  in  spite  of  all  that  she  had  done, 
for  no  punishment  equals  the  horror  of  solitary  confine- 
ment ;  and  she  was  thus  condemned  to  solitary  confinement 
of  the  soul  until  she  should  die. 

And  he,  in  his  rage,  plunged  lower  and  lower  into  the 


272  SHARROW 

mire,  until,  as  Lise  had  told  John  Dingle,  he  was  always 
drunk  late  in  the  evening,  and,  indeed,  sometimes  all  day  as 
well. 

Even  Syd  was  forgotten. 

He  had  now  no  friend.  All  the  world  was  evil  and 
false,  and  only  brandy  made  him  forget. 

The  poor  Lise,  as  he  called  her,  was  not  bad  for  one  of 
her  kind,  and  when  he  allowed  her  to  hang  the  walls  of  his 
big  salon  with  pink  brocade,  and  to  cover  her  own  meagre 
little  body  with  the  stuffs  she  coveted,  she  was  content. 
It  pleased  her  to  be  called  "Madame"  by  the  concierge, 
and,  ma  foi,  for  her  part,  she  was  not  afraid  of  a  drunkard. 
There  were  worse  things.  Besides,  she  loved  Jules,  the 
dear  little  Jules  who  painted,  and  Alexandre  was  kind 
to  Jules. 

John  Dingle  came  to  the  Place  of  the  Green  Tree  like  an 
angel  from  heaven  to  deliver  Sandy  from  himself.  And 
Sandy,  waking  the  next  morning,  quite  sober,  knew  it. 

Sharrow  was  to  be  his,  and  he  must  arise,  and  go  out  to 
a  place  of  purification  to  make  himself  fit  to  touch  the 
meanest  stone  of  the  old  place. 

Gravely  he  told  Lise  that  he  was  leaving;  gravely  he 
gave  her  money,  kissed  her  little  round  forehead  with 
surely  the  most  innocent  kiss  placed  there  since  she  had 
left  her  mother's  arms;  gravely  he  got  rid  of  his  house 
and  his  servants,  all  but  his  valet,  Anderson,  an  English- 
man he  had  picked  up  in  Hong  Kong. 

And  then  he  pondered  where  he  should  go,  how  he 
could  clean  himself. 

One  afternoon  he  went  out  to  the  Forest  of  Vincennes 
to  walk  in  the  wood.  He  could  get  no  drinkable  brandy 
there,  and  he  would  be  alone.  He  had  a  great  desire  for 
solitude. 

Evening  came,  and  he  still  walked  among  the  great  trees, 
unable  to  come  to  any  decision. 


SffARKOW  273 

Old  Dingle  had  returned  to  England,  bearing  Sandy's 
promise  to  be  at  Sharrow  within  six  weeks.  The  six  weeks 
were  to  be  passed  in  pulling  himself  together.  But  where  ? 
And  how? 

Presently  he  came  to  a  small  chapel  in  the  wood;  a 
little  gray  building  filled  now  with  darkness  in  which 
glowed  only  the  red  light  before  the  altar. 

Tired  with  his  long  tramp,  Sandy  went  in  and  sat  down. 
It  was  a  very  humble  place.  The  wooden  Christ  on  the 
Cross  was  hideous,  and  needed  fresh  paint;  the  windows 
were  of  plain  glass.  But  it  held  one  vital,  interesting 
thing :  a  man  kneeling  before  the  altar. 

The  man  was  praying,  and  did  not  look  up.  Sandy 
watched  him.  It  never  occurred  to  him  to  pray,  too,  but 
the  man  interested  him. 

And  when  the  long  prayer  was  over,  Sandy  followed  the 
man,  who,  he  saw,  was  old  and  work-worn,  out  into  the 
gathering  dusk  under  the  great  trees. 

The  wind  had  come  up,  and  the  trees  were  all  in  mo- 
tion, the  motion  that  makes  them  such  vital  things. 

Sandy  spoke  to  the  man,  whose  blackened  face  and  hands 
proclaimed  him  to  be  a  charcoal-burner,  and  asked  his  way 
to  the  nearest  village  whence  he  could  return  "by  train  to 
Paris,  and,  as  it  was  the  man's  own  way,  they  walked  on 
together. 

"I  saw  you  in  the  church." 

"Out,  M'sieur." 

' '  It  must  be  good  to  pray. ' ' 

The  old  man  shot  a  suspicious  glance  at  him. 

"But,  yes " 

They  went  along  for  several  minutes,  and  then  Sandy 
said: 

"Look  here,  my  friend,  I  am  in  trouble.     Advise  me." 

"I?    Monsieur  laughs  at  me." 

"No.    Listen.    I  have  been  very  bad.    I  have  wasted  the 


274  SHARROW 

years  of  my  life  that  should  have  been  the  best;  I  have 
wasted  my  youth,  my  health,  my  brain.  I  have  given  up 
my  country,  my  family,  my  home.  And  now — I  am  sorry. 
What  shall  I  do?" 

The  old  man  stopped.  The  gentleman  spoke  French  like 
a  Frenchman,  but  he  was  not  French.  Therefore,  the 
chances  were  that  he  was  mad.  Surely  this  was  a  strange 
question  to  ask  an  old  peasant ! 

"Tell  me,"  Sandy  said,  gently.  "You  are  old,  and 
you  are  fresh  from  your  prayers.  What  shall  I  do?" 

The  trees  were  barer  here,  and  beyond  their  great 
branches  the  stars  shone  in  the  sky.  The  tiny  village, 
a  little  congeries  of  charcoal-burners'  huts,  was  not  far 
distant,  and  lights  were  in  the  windows  already. 

At  last  the  charcoal-burner  spoke. 

"I  am  an  ignorant  man,  sir — I  can't  read  or  write — I 
can  but  burn  charcoal.  But  I  come  from  Brittany,  and 
there  we  love  the  Holy  Church  and  our  Blessed  Lady.  I 
think  if  I  were  you  and  I  wanted  to  be  good  again,  I  should 
make  a  pilgrimage  to  some  holy  shrine,  and  there  I  should 
pray " 

"Yes — I  see.    And  where?    To  what  shrine?" 

"Well — I  am  poor,  I  could  not  go  far.  But  you — you 
are  rich,  sir,  you  could  even  go  to  Rome!" 

And  thus  was  set  in  Sandy 's  brain  the  germ  of  the  idea 
of  his  rehabilitating  pilgrimage.  His  ends  were  hygienic, 
rather  than  religious;  the  long  tramp  would  harden  his 
muscle,  help  him  to  master  his  craving  for  spirit,  teach 
him  to  sleep  and  to  eat  again.  The  air  would  refresh  him, 
the  rough  fare  in  the  country  inns  would  heal  his  outraged 
digestion.  And  the  solitude,  among  ever-changing  scenes, 
would  regain  for  his  mind  the  balance  it  needed. 

He  would  walk  to  Rome.  It  should  be  his  penance  and 
his  pilgrimage. 


CHAPTER  XLVI 

AND  the  pilgrimage  had  done  its  work. 

The  man  who  spent  the  next  few  days  in  Rome  with 
his  brother  was  not  the  man  who  had  left  England  nearly  ten 
years  ago;  he  was  gone,  and  not  even  the  miracle  worker 
of  Galilee  could  bring  him  back  to  life.  But  that  other 
man,  he  of  Paris,  lay  in  his  grave  as  well,  and  this  Sandy 
knew  and  for  this  he  gave  thanks. 

The  spirit  within  the  grave,  quiet  man  with  the  distin- 
guished carriage  and  the  sad  mouth,  was  a  new  spirit  cre- 
ated by  the  mystery  of  God  from  the  other  two,  and  as  yet 
he  was  a  stranger  to  the  man  in  whose  body  he  had  come 
to  live. 

Syd,  who  was  bubbling  over  with  the  joy  of  his  nineteen 
years,  treated  Rome  as  something  he  himself  had  discov- 
ered, and  to  his  brother  he  proudly  displayed  it. 

Together  they  visited  the  galleries,  the  churches,  the 
wonderful  gardens  that  are  perhaps  the  best  of  all. 

And  Sandy  listened  kindly  to  the  boy,  never  impatient 
of  being  told,  hastily  or  incorrectly,  things  which  he  him- 
self knew  all  about. 

It  mattered  nothing  to  him  when  Syd  attributed  to  some 
Pope  Clement  the  crime  or  the  good  deed  of  one  of  the 
Alexanders ;  but  the  boy 's  enthusiasm,  his  air  of  utter  hap- 
piness mattered  everything  to  him. 

Sandy  submitted,  too,  with  the  greatest  patience,  to  the 
amused  snubs  youth  has  always  in  affectionate  readiness  for 
the  elder  members  of  its  family. 

275 


276  SHAEROW 

Sandy,  admiring  marble  pillars  and  gold  ceilings,  was 
told  with  a  shriek  of  horror  that  he  must  reform  his  taste. 

"It's  awful,  Sandy,  really  awful!"  the  young  purist 
cried.  "Dear  old  chap,  you  mustn't  like  the  rococo!" 

And  Sandy,  feeling  like  an  old  man,  smiled,  and  prom- 
ised. He  remembered  Syd's  childish  love  for  the  yellow 
satin  drawing-room,  but  he  said  nothing.  His  own  taste 
in  pictures  had  always  been  deplorable,  and  it  had  not  im- 
proved. The  only  interest  lay  for  him  in  the  story  it  told, 
so  he  found  real  (but  reprehensible)  pleasure  in  some  of 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  century  historical  paintings 
that  plaster  the  walls  of  Rome. 

He  liked  soldiers  in  armor  rushing  through  a  break  in  a 
wall,  clambering,  with  the  indifference  of  bloodthirstiness, 
over  dead  men,  or  hewing  each  other  down. 

He  liked  the  classical  narrative  paintings — the  old 
JEneas  borne  from  the  flames  of  Troy  by  the  man  who 
subsequently  boasted  of  the  deed;  Hector  dead  on  his 
shield;  and  the  rest — miles  and  miles  of  stories  in  color. 

And  over  his  taste  Syd  groaned  in  comic,  but  quite 
serious  dismay.  It  seemed  to  him  of  the  utmost  importance 
that  Sandy's  taste  should  be  reformed,  and  cheerfully, 
with  the  beautiful  courage  of  youth,  he  set  himself  to  the 
task.  Unconsciously  he  showed  his  brother  how  very 
vast  he  felt  to  be  the  difference  between  their  ages. 

"Of  course,  it's  cheek,"  he  would  say,  "a  kid  like  me 
telling  a  man  like  you  these  things,  but — well,  you  see, 
I  have  always  been  so  fond  of  artistic  things." 

And  Sandy  would  smile  his  grave  smile  that  never 
seemed  to  touch  his  eyes,  and  answer:  "Fire  away,  oh, 
youth,  thy  servant  heareth." 

Once  Sandy  was  taken  to  lunch  with  a  friend  of  the 
boy's. 

"She's  a  dear  old  thing — awfully  keen  on  art,  and  all 
the  things  that  really  matter — and  very  good-looking,  too, ' ' 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  277 

Syd  added,  with  his  air  of  extreme  sapience,  ' '  for  a  woman 
of  her  age.  You  '11  see. ' ' 

And  what  Sandy  saw,  when  they  reached  the  duchess's 
villa,  his  eyes  prepared  to  receive  an  old  lady,  was  a  woman 
of  rather  more  his  own  age,  lavish  as  to  war-paint,  and, 
moreover,  a  woman  with  whom  he  himself  had  once  had  an 
intense  though  fleeting  intimacy. 

Not  in  the  least  discountenanced,  she  greeted  him  with 
pleasure,  and  informed  him  that  his  baby  brother  was 
the  only  real  love  of  her  life. 

She  added  that  he,  Sandy,  had  changed,  had  grown 
unjustifiably  old,  and  that  she  was  delighted  to  see  him 
even  though  he  did  remind  her  of  times  antediluvian. 

Then,  as  they  ate  their  excellent  risotto  with  truffles,  she 
favored  him  with  a  brief  but  picturesque  account  of  her 
first  husband's  death  and  her  marriage  with  the  duke, 
which  absent  gentleman  was,  she  declared,  something  over 
a  hundred  years  old. 

"And  you?"  she  resumed,  with  a  vivacity  which  seemed 
to  Sandy  to  be  somewhat  lugubrious,  "you  are  married,  of 
course?  Have  you  children?" 

Syd  burst  out  laughing.  "Sandy  married;  good  Lord, 
no,"  he  declared  with  authority,  seizing  the  conversational 
helm.  "Imagine  old  Sandy  with  a  wife  and  family!" 

The  duchess,  who  had  heard  of  the  turn  in  the  wheel  of 
her  old  friend's  fortunes,  turned  her  eyes,  which  were 
rather  glassy  and  swollen  under  their  penciled  brows,  on 
the  young  man. 

' '  Touch  wood,  my  friend, ' '  she  said  with  a  little  smile ; 
' '  your  brother  is  still  young ! ' ' 

Syd  was  silent  for  a  moment.  "Oh,  I  see,"  he  said  at 
length.  "I  hadn't  thought  of  that.  Until  you  do  marry, 
Sandy,  I  am  your  heir-apparent,  ain't  I?" 

Sandy  nodded.    ' '  You  are. ' ' 

He  said  no  more,  and  the  duchess  changed  the  subject. 


278  S  H  A  R  E  0  W 

After  lunch  Syd  went  into  the  next  room,  on  a  sign 
from  his  hostess,  to  look  at  some  old  engravings  she  had 
deniche  chez  un  vieux  fourbe  d'antiquaire,  and  Sandy  and 
the  lady  smoked  their  cigarettes  on  a  small  terrace  over- 
hanging the  umbrageous  and  be-statued  garden. 

' '  You  were  surprised  to  see  me,  eh  ? "  she  began,  settling 
herself  on  her  chaise-longue. 

''No." 

"But  he  did  not  know  I  knew  you — I  did  not  tell  him." 

' '  To  tell  the  truth, ' '  Sandy  returned,  not  without  malice, 
"I  had  clean  forgotten  you." 

"Bear!" 

"Yes,  I  am  a  bear.  And,  my  dear  Duchess,  bears  pro- 
tect their  cubs." 

' '  Ah !    I  thought  you  had  no — cubs  ? ' ' 

"Syd  is  my  cub.  Let  me  see — I  am  three-and-thirty ; 
you  are  two  or  three  years  older  than  I.  Syd  is  nineteen. 
So  remember,  Belle  Dame  aux  Mains  Blanches,"  he  added, 
very  gently,  using  his  whilom  pet  name  for  her,  "hands 
off." 

"You  remember  the  old  name,  at  all  events — Sandy. 
However,  you  wrong  me.  I  may  not  be  very  good,  but  I 
have  some  sense  of  humor.  And,  as  you  rightly,  though 
rudely,  say,  I  am  thirty-five  years  old,  and  your  cub  ig 
nineteen.  Even  if  he  were  attracted  by  me,  which  he  really 
isn't,  I  should  not  make  myself  a  laughing-stock  by  re- 
sponding to  his  infantile  ardor." 

"Good!" 

After  a  pause,  during  which  he  sat  in  unconcealed  ab- 
straction, she  asked  a  question  which,  although  she  did 
not  know  it,  touched  the  matter  occupying  his  thoughts. 

"And  the  boy  is  your  heir?" 

"Yes." 

"Until  you  marry,  my  friend,  remember  that " 

In  spite  of  her  multi-colored  past,  her  paints  and  dyes 


SHARROW  279 

and  crayons,  she  was  a  kind  woman,  and  presently,  as  he 
continued  to  sit  there  smoking  in  silence,  she  added : ' '  Don 't 
let  him  learn  to  regard  himself  as  your  heir,  Sandro  mio — 
it  would  be  cruel. ' ' 

He  looked  up,  recognizing  the  real  good  will  in  her 
words. 

"But  he  is  my  heir,  Maddalena;  I  shall  never  marry." 

It  was  a  strange  thing  that,  for  all  his  love  for  Syd,  the 
idea  that  his  great  good  fortune  was  to  descend  on  the 
boy  had  never  before  occurred  to  him. 

Probably  because  he  was  mentally  as  well  as  physically 
ill  when  the  news  came,  and  because  the  subsequent  weeks 
had  been  passed  in  a  fierce  struggle  to  retrieve  himself,  the 
only  thought  he  had  had  regarding  the  boy  was  that  he 
could  now  see  him  again  and  be  with  him. 

Ironical  it  was  that  the  tremendous  importance  of  what 
he  could  now  give  his  brother  should  have  dawned  on  him 
as  the  result  of  a  word  uttered  by  this  woman  with  whom 
his  brief  liaison  had  almost  completely  died  from  his 
memory. 

Sharrow  was  his,  but  he  was  no  longer  fit  for  it;  his 
young  enthusiasms,  his  young  ambitions,  were  gone;  gone, 
too,  the  very  power  of  rejoicing  in  having  for  his  own  the 
place  he  had  so  deeply  loved. 

This  had  been  the  sad  refrain  of  his  thoughts,  during  his 
long  tramp  southwards.  And,  when  the  fierce  craving  for 
spirit  came  over  him,  it  had  been  his  strongest  temptation. 
Sharrow  had  come  too  late.  He  could  be  no  good  to  it,  in 
his  deep  un worthiness ;  it  could  no  longer  make  him 
happy. 

Once,  in  a  little  inn  in  the  St.  Gothard  Pass,  his  enemy 
had  so  nearly  worsted  him  that  he  had  a  glass  of  rough 
cheap  brandy  poured  out,  and  was  about  to  pour  it  down 
his  longing  throat,  when  his  eyes  fell  on  his  ring.  Ce  que 
Charreau  possede,  Charreau  garde. 


280  SHARROW 

With  an  oath,  he  flung  the  stuff,  for  lack  of  a  better 
place,  on  the  floor. 

Sharrow  was  his  now.    He  would  keep  it. 

But  now,  sitting  there,  looking  into  the  sunlit  cypresses 
in  the  Duca  de  Roccagliano 's  garden  in  Rome,  a  faint  stir- 
ring of  the  old  feeling  came  to  him :  the  Sharrow  Feeling — 
the  beauty  and  mystery  and  coolness  of  the  old  place. 
Starting,  mentally,  to  catch  it,  it  flew  away  like  a  gay 
butterfly,  and  was  lost. 

But  he  had  felt  it  flutter;  it  still  lived  within  him,  and 
it  might  come  back. 

He  rose.  "Forgive  my  being  rude — I  was  always  rude, 
you  know — you  used  to  say  so.  But  I  must  go.  There  is 
something  I  must  tell  my  brother." 

She  held  out  her  hand.  "Very  well.  Something  has 
happened  to  you — something  mental.  Come  to  see  me 
again  before  you  go.  And — I  have  not  congratulated  you 
yet,  but  I  am  very  glad  for  your  good  fortune." 

He  held  her  hand  in  his  for  a  moment.  "I  am  sorry 
I  misjudged  you  about  my  brother,"  he  said.  "You  are 
very  attractive,  you  know." 

Then  he  and  Syd  walked  away  in  the  pleasant  autumn 
sunshine  back  over  the  bridge  of  St.  Angelo,  behind  St. 
Peter's,  &nd  up  the  long  winding  road  among  the  trees  to- 
ward the  villa  where  the  boy  was  living  with  friends. 

On  the  little  plateau  in  front  of  San  Pietro  in  Montorio, 
Sandy,  who  had  been  very  silent,  stopped. 

Syd,  whose  French  blood  predominated  much  more  than 
Sandy's  did  in  him,  had  slipped  his  arm  through  his 
brother's,  and,  thus  linked,  they  stood  looking  down  at 
the  view  that  surely  is  the  most  beautiful  view  of  a  great 
city  in  the  whole  world. 

"Syd." 

"Sandear?" 

Syd,  as  he  spoke,  hastily  pulled  off  his  hat,  bowing  to 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  281 

an  old  man  dressed  in  black  that  gave  him,  in  some 
subtle  way,  the  air  of  being  connected  with  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  a  girl,  evidently  his  daughter. 

"That's  Don  Ramon  Suarez,  Sandy,"  Syd  explained, 
with  a  touch  of  pride  in  the  acquaintance.  "He  was  the 
lay  secretary  to  the  Archbishop  of  Barcelona,  and  it  is 
his  'History  of  the  Last  Hundred  Years  of  the  Papacy' 
that  caused  all  the  talk  and  lost  him  his  position.  An 
awfully  brilliant  man." 

"Looks  like  an  old  rat." 

' '  He  does,  rather !  And  his  daughter  plays  the  piano  bet- 
ter than  any  woman  I  have  ever  heard,  bar  Teresa  Car- 
refio. ' ' 

' '  Does  she  ?  Delightful.  Syd,  there  is  something  I  wish 
to  say  to  you. ' ' 

The  boy  again  took  his  arm,  and  stood  leaning  affec- 
tionately against  him  as  he  spoke. 

"Syd — do  you  understand  what  Sharrow  is?" 

"Rather!  Awfully  jolly  old  house,  and  lots  of  money, 
I  suppose. ' ' 

Sandy  sighed.  He  remembered  his  fruitless  efforts  of 
long  ago  to  convey  to  the  boy  what  he  himself  thought 
about  it. 

"No,  no;  not  that.  It  is  hard  to  explain,  but  I  will  try, 
and  you  must  be  patient  and  listen." 

"All  right.  I  say,  Sandear,  if  Senorita  Maria  Paz  does 
come  out  as  a  professional  pianist,  perhaps  we  could  give 
her  a  leg  up  in  London.  She  really  plays  magnificently, 
and  she 's  a  nice  girl,  though  not  a  bit  pretty,  poor  thing. ' ' 

' '  All  right,  Syd,  we  '11  try, ' '  returned  Sandy  patiently. 

Then,  standing  there  in  the  Roman  sunshine,  he  made 
his  declaration  of  faith. 

"Just  as  the  earthworm  is  a  part  of  its  clod  of  earth, 
and  the  clod  of  earth  part  of  the  field,  and  the  field  a  part 
of  the  whole  estate,  so,  it  seems  to  me,  that  you  and  I, 


282  SHARROW 

Syd,  are  a  part  of  Sharrow.  Not  of  the  concrete  place  it- 
self, of  course,  but  of  it  as  a  system,  an  idea,  a  fabric. 
And  just  as  the  acres  of  Sharrow  are  a  part  of  the  king- 
dom, so  the  history  of  Sharrow  is  a  part  of  the  history  of 
England — and  so  on,  until  we  find  ourselves,  just  you  and 
me,  two  ordinary  men,  an  integral  part  of  the  history  of 
the  world,  and  the  universe." 

Syd  listened,  his  beautiful  face  turned  to  the  view  be- 
low them. 

"According  to  the  Bible,"  he  murmured,  as  if  half 
asleep,  "every  man  is  a  part  of  the  universe." 

' '  I  know ;  but  try  to  understand  what  I  mean ;  I  am  not 
talking  about  souls.  Well — England  is  full  of  rich  men, 
and  beautiful  estates,  and  historical  names.  But  many  of 
the  historical  names  have  changed  hands  over  and  over 
again,  through  deaths,  marriages,  and  even  through  bar- 
gains with  the  Church  or  the  King.  There  are,  of  the  old, 
original  families  who  go  straight  back,  without  a  break, 
to  their  founders,  but  very  few  left.  And  of  these  we 
Sharrows  are  one.  We  are,  among  the  transferred  names 
and  the  new  peerages,  a  kind  of  Old  Guard.  That  is  one 
thing  I  want  you  to  remember.  We  belong,  you  and  I, 
to  a  kind  of  nobility  among  the  nobility,  and  it  is  a 
great  heritage." 

' '  I  'm  a  Socialist, ' '  murmured  the  boy,  with  a  little  smile. 

"No,  you're  not;  you're  a  Sharrow.  But  this  isn't  the 
— the  best  side  of  it,  Syd,  this  material  side.  There  is  a  kind 
of  feeling  I  can't  express — it's  like  a  scent,  or  a  color — a 
kind  of  realization  of  belonging  to — to  the  Thing.  Of — of 
being  a  crumb  in  the  loaf,  a  leaf  on  the  tree,  a  thread  in  the 
fabric.  And  it  is  at  once  the  proudest  and  the  humblest 
feeling  in  the  world ;  it  makes  one  long  to  die  for  the  name, 
for  the  place — to  give  one 's  very  blood  for  it. ' ' 

"Do  you  feel  like  that,  Sandy?"  Syd  spoke  very  seri- 
ously. 


SHARROW  283 

"Yes.  And  when  I  was  young,  there  was  in  it  a — a 
glory  that  I  can't  find  words  for.  You  are  young  now, 
Syd.  And  I  want  you  always  to  remember  this  one  thing. 
You  are  a  part  of  Sharrow  and — Sharrow  will  one  day 
be  yours.  I  shall  never  marry." 

The  boy  turned,  his  eyes  wet.  "Nonsense,  San  dear;  of 
course  you  will!  Why,  you  aren't  old;  you're  really  quite 
young,"  he  added,  with  what  was  evidently  a  generous  ex- 
aggeration of  his  own  convictions.  "You  11  marry,  and 
I'll  be  Uncle  Syd!" 

Sandy  shook  his  head,  smiling  a  smile  that  was  intensely 
sad. 

"No,  I  shall  never  marry.  You  must  marry.  You  must 
marry  while  you  are  young — a  good  woman — and  I  will  be 
Uncle  Sandy." 

Then  they  walked  slowly  up  the  hill. 


CHAPTER  XLVII 

IN  the  arm-chair  in  which  Sandy  had,  twenty  years  ago, 
first  seen  his  great-uncle,  his  great-uncle  received  him  when 
he  came  as  his  heir. 

The  old  man,  now  the  oldest  peer  in  the  kingdom,  sat 
wrapped  in  a  wadded  dressing-gown  and  several  shawls 
by  a  great  fire,  for  he  was  always  cold ;  he  had  been  freez- 
ing, he  himself  was  wont  querulously  to  quaver,  for  years. 
And  the  afternoon  was  a  bitter  one  in  late  November. 

On  a  small  table  close  to  the  arm-chair  stood  a  clock  with 
peculiarly  large  figures  on  its  white  face,  a  pair  of  tor- 
toise-shell rimmed  spectacles,  a  bottle  and  glass,  that  were 
evidently  wedded,  and  a  coil  of  black  rubber  terminating  in 
a  kind  of  brass-lined  petunia  of  giant  growth. 

Lord  Sharrow  was  nearly  blind,  and  even  more  nearly 
stone  deaf.  The  only  faculty  old  age  had  been  powerless 
to  injure  in  him  was  that  of  speech. 

In  a  high  peevish  tone  he  now  berated  his  nurse,  a  placid- 
faced  woman  in  blue  and  white  uniform,  who  sat  by  the 
window  engaged,  as  if  in  unconscious  irony,  in  knitting 
a  garment  such  as,  close  on  a  century  ago,  some  long  since 
dead  woman  had  knitted  for  the  old  man  for  whose  death 
she,  the  nurse,  so  patiently  waited. 

"The  train  must  be  in  long  ago — long  ago,"  he  fretted. 
''He  hasn't  come.  I  suppose  he  has  stopped  in  London 
to  amuse  himself.  He  was  always  a  selfish  young  dog.  If 
he  does  not  come  soon,  I  won't  receive  him.  Nurse,  do  you 
hear  me?" 

284 


SHAREOW  285 

"I  hear  you,  Lord  Sharrow."  Her  shout  reached  him 
as  a  whisper. 

"I  think  I'll  have  some  of  my  tonic.  I  feel  weak — 
very  weak.  No  one  realizes  how  weak  I  am,"  he  whim- 
pered, his  claw-like  hands  twisted  together  piteously. 

Holding  a  napkin  carefully  under  his  chin,  she  poured 
the  medicine  into  his  poor  old  mouth. 

"It  is  only  four  now,"  she  shouted  into  his  better  ear. 
"The  train  wasn't  due  till  three-forty-five." 

"Did  they  send  the  new  car?  "Which  car  did  they 
send?" 

"They  sent  the  new  Mercedes,  Lord  Sharrow." 

"Probably  broken  down." 

None  of  the  merciful  dullness  of  mind  often  incident 
to  great  age  had  been  granted  to  Alexander  Sharrow.  In 
the  prison  of  his  decaying  faculties  his  mind,  reduced 
in  volume  but  as  keen  as  ever,  struggled  like  a  squirrel  in 
its  wheel. 

He  knew  that  he  was  old  and  deaf  and  half  blind,  and 
tied  to  his  chair  by  his  weakness.  And  for  these  things  he 
despised  himself,  and  raged  at  the  powers  that  had  created 
him  to  mock  at  him. 

And  Nurse  Blake,  with  the  sad  serenity  of  her  kind, 
went  back  to  her  chair  and  began  the  second  sleeve  on  the 
tiny  garment  she,  in  the  rare  moments  of  her  freedom  from 
the  man  who  had  so  nearly  ceased  to  be,  was  making  for 
the  man  or  woman  who  did  not  yet  live. 

After  a  while,  Waters,  now  gray  and  old  himself,  came 
quietly  in  and  mended  the  fire. 

"The  motor  is  coming  up  the  drive,  my  lord,"  he  said, 
very  loud. 

"Damn  you,  speak  up,  can't  you?" 

1 '  Give  him  his  trumpet,  "Waters, ' '  suggested  Nurse  Blake. 
"Mr.  Sharrow  won't  be  able  to  make  him  hear  without 
it." 


286  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

Waters  again  bellowed  the  news,  and  Lord  Sharrow 
heard  him. 

' '  Good !  Am  I  all  right,  Waters  ?  Take  away  that  medi- 
cine glass." 

The  man  obeyed,  switched  on  the  electric  light — installed 
in  1890 — and  left  the  room,  the  nurse  following  him 
quietly. 

The  clock  ticked  in  the  silence,  and  the  old  man  waited. 
Sandy  was  coming.  He  had  wronged  Sandy,  he  had  sent 
the  boy  whom  he  loved  as  much  as  he  was  capable  of  lov- 
ing any  human  being  out  into  the  wilderness,  broken- 
hearted. And  yet,  on  the  extreme  edge  of  the  grave, 
he  awaited  the  return  of  the  man  he  had  so  dreadfully 
injured,  with  a  leap  of  the  heart  that  brought  a  faint  color 
to  his  ancient  cheeks. 

When  the  door  opened,  and  Sandy  stood  in  it,  his  face 
white,  stern,  yet  in  its  very  immobility  showing  how  deeply 
he  was  shaken,  the  old  man  spoke. 

' '  Well,  come  in,  come  in.    I  can 't  stand  a  draught. ' ' 

Sandy  closed  the  door. 

Ten  years  ago  his  old  kinsman  had  been,  though  already 
ancient,  yet  a  foeman  worthy  of  his  steel.  There  were 
things  Sandy  had  wished  to  say  on  his  return  to  the  home 
of  his  fathers — things,  the  saying  of  which  would  have 
been  a  relief  to  his  soul. 

He  had  not  forgiven  his  great-uncle,  he  had  not  forgiven 
Maggie  Penrose;  he  never  would  forgive  them.  This  im- 
mutability of  resentment  was  a  part  of  his  very  being ;  he 
had  not  created  it ;  he  was  powerless,  even  had  he  so  wished, 
to  destroy  it.  It  was  like  a  rib  of  naked  rock  in  his  mental 
lands. 

But  unless  this  man  who  had  destroyed  him  could  be 
brought  to  know,  even  as  his  accomplice,  the  woman,  knew, 
how  his  wrath  would  endure  through  all  eternity,  Sandy 
knew  he  would  find  no  peace.  He  had  come  with  words  in 


SHARROW  287 

his  mouth,  and  the  words  fell  back,  unspoken,  into  his 
heart. 

His  enemy  had,  in  his  partial  death,  passed  beyond  his 
mark. 

"How  do  you  do,  sir?"  he  said. 

"I  am  very  well,  Sandy,  very  well  for  a  man  of  my 
age.  Since  Lord  Balmarnock  died,  last  spring,"  Lord 
Sharrow  answered,  with  a  macabre  vanity,  "I  am  the  old- 
est peer  of  the  realm !  But  come  in — come  in.  Sit  there, 
where  I  can  see  you.  I — I  have  longed  for  you  to  come, 
Sandy."  His  voice  broke. 

The  big  man  obeyed,  sitting  down  in  a  little  white  chair 
he  remembered  well,  and  submitted,  when  his  great-uncle 
had  carefully  fitted  on  his  spectacles,  to  a  prolonged  scru- 
tiny. 

"Well,  well,  well.    Just  the  same — just  the  same." 

"No,  sir;  I  am  not  the  same." 

' '  Hold  your  tongue !  I  say  you  are.  You  are  exactly, ' ' 
insisted  the  old  gentleman  with  satisfaction,  "what  I  was 
at  your  age ! ' ' 

Sandy  was  silent. 

The  interview  seemed  to  him  to  be  a  mere  painful  trav- 
esty of  the  one  he  had  expected.  Another  hope,  and  a 
very  strong — though  not  a  very  worthy  one,  was  shattered 
— the  hope  of  telling  his  great-uncle  in  plain  English  what 
he,  his  heir,  thought  of  him.  The  phrases,  appropriate  to 
the  purpose,  had  been  for  weeks  growing  up  in  Sandy's 
mind,  phrases  bitter,  curt  and  poignant — that  one  satisfac- 
tion, at  least,  should  be  his.  And  now,  he  knew,  it  never 
should. 

Lord  Sharrow  had  escaped  his  vengeance. 

Presently  the  old  man  began  to  cry,  beating  his  hands 
together  with  a  little  dry  sound  not  unlike  that  of  the 
scraping  of  autumn  leaves. 

"Oh,"  he  moaned,  "I  am  so  old,  so  old!" 


288  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

The  nurse  came  in,  and  gave  him  a  glass  of  port  and 
water,  crumbling  bits  of  biscuit  into  his  toothless  old 
mouth. 

"Your  coming  has  excited  him,"  she  said  to  Sandy. 
"Now,  don't  cry,  Lord  Sharrow.  You  must  sleep  now, 
and,  when  you  wake  up,  Mr.  Sharrow  will  come  back  to 
you." 

Sandy  left  the  room  without  being  noticed  by  the  old 
man,  and  went  downstairs.  He  was  tired,  mentally  and 
physically.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  been  beaten  all  over. 

Sharrow  seemed  to  stand  aloof,  to  frown  at  him.  He 
was  all  unworthy  to  be  even  a  leaf  on  its  tree.  It  had 
come,  as  so  many  things  in  this  sad  world  do  come,  too 
late. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII 

One  evening,  a  few  days  before  Christmas,  Mary  Wy- 
mondham  sat  in  her  drawing-room  in  the  Corner  House, 
making,  with  a  great  show  of  tissue  paper,  scarlet  ribbon, 
and  sprigs  of  holly,  her  Christmas  packages. 

It  was  a  pleasant  room,  compounded  of  things  given 
to  her  grandmother  on  the  occasion  of  her  wedding,  seventy 
years  before,  and  things  bought  by  or  given  to  her  grand- 
mother's son,  Mary's  father,  when  he  married,  in  1860  or 
thereabouts. 

The  carpet,  a  plain  green  one,  was  new;  but  the  chintz 
of  the  chairs  and  curtains  had  come  from  the  Vicarage 
drawing-room,  and  had  been  much  washed,  and  nearly  as 
often  mended. 

Mary  loved  it  because  she  had  known  its  absurd  foliage, 
diversified  by  parrots  of  tropical  hue,  ever  since  she  could 
remember. 

The  room,  which  was  rather  large,  had  three  windows, 
all  looking  on  the  lawn  just  within  the  green  gate  opening 
on  to  the  road  at  the  end  of  the  village.  It  was  thus  pleas- 
antly light,  even  in  the  winter,  and  now,  at  four  o'clock, 
the  red  firelight  from  the  big  hearth  was  only  just  begin- 
ning to  gain  on  its  rival. 

From  a  dark  portrait  opposite  the  fireplace  a  lady  in 
powder  smiled  down  at  the  solitary  woman  as  she  worked 
with  a  big  ivory  paper-cutter  and  her  scissors,  folding  the 
crisp  white  paper,  cutting  it  with  the  paper-cutter  into 
the  desired  size,  then  deftly  making  the  packet,  tying  it 

289 


290  SHARROW 

with  the  ribbon,  snipping  the  ribbon  when  she  had  made 
the  bow,  and  with  a  deft  touch  inserting  a  sprig  of  holly 
under  it. 

"Six,"  she  declared  aloud,  with  satisfaction. 

In  her  pleasant  drawing-room,  Mary  Wymondham  was 
a  pleasant  sight.  She  wore  a  very  well-cut  coat  and  skirt 
of  dark  tweed,  a  silk  shirt  with  a  silk  collar  and  a  bright 
green  tie,  tied  like  a  man's,  the  collar  being  held  in  place 
under  the  tie  by  a  gold  safety-pin — a  thing  not  so  usual 
then  as  it  is  now,  and  which  gave  her  an  air  of  peculiar 
neatness. 

She  had  never,  even  as  a  young  girl,  been  pretty,  and 
now,  at  two-and-thirty,  no  one  would  have  applied  the  word 
to  her.  Her  dark  face,  with  its  alert  brown  eyes  under 
heavy  black  brows,  and  its  rather  high  cheek-bones,  was  too 
strong  for  prettiness,  too  irregular  for  beauty. 

But  as  her  natural  impatience  and  high-handedness  be- 
came softened  by  time  and  the  discipline  that  is  the  gift 
of  Heaven  to  everyone  who  does  not  reject  it,  her  face 
had  gained  something  of  gentleness  that  it  had  formerly 
lacked. 

She  was  happy  as  she  worked  at  her  attractive  little 
task;  and  when,  as  happened  once  or  twice,  she  smiled 
over  one  of  her  gifts,  delightful  dimples  broke  the  surface 
of  her  smooth  brown  cheeks. 

"Eight!" 

The  clock  struck  half-past  four  as  she  spoke,  and  at  the 
same  moment  the  garden  gate  clicked,  and  a  man's  foot- 
steps came  along  past  the  window,  crunching  the  gravel 
energetically. 

Mary  "Wymondham  glanced  out,  dropped  a  doll  whose  legs 
showed  an  unregenerate  desire  for  publicity,  and,  going 
hastily  to  her  writing-table,  took  a  framed  photograph 
from  it  and  was  about  to  put  it  into  the  drawer.  Then, 
as  the  door-bell  rang,  she  shook  her  head,  and  set  the  pic- 


SHARROW  291 

ture  back  in  its  prominent  place,  and  went  back  to  the 
fire. 

' '  Stuff  and  nonsense ! ' '  she  said,  under  her  breath.  "  I  '11 
do  nothing  of  the  sort." 

When  her  little  parlor-maid  ushered  in  her  guest,  Miss 
Wymondham  held  out  both  her  hands  to  him,  with  frank 
pleasure. 

"How  nice  of  you,  Sandy;  I  am  delighted.  Sally,  let's 
have  tea  at  once,  please." 

The  little  maid,  who  was  a  Babbage  of  the  "Sheep- 
shearers,"  and  a  godchild  of  old  Dingle's  fat  daughter, 
hurried  away  to  Cook,  full  of  importance.  She  knew  all 
about  Mr.  Sandy,  the  new  heir,  and  only  the  other  day  she 
had  heard  her  great-uncle,  John  Dingle,  singing  his  praises. 
They  should,  she  decided,  have  muffins  positively  dripping 
with  butter.  And  they  did. 

A  plate,  containing  one  of  Sally  Babbage 's  mute  tributes 
to  his  greatness,  on  his  knee,  Sandy  sat  by  the  fire,  wishing 
with  all  his  heart  that  he  had  not  come. 

He  had  been  for  weeks  at  Sharrow — he  could  not  say  ' '  at 
home"  even  to  himself — and  for  a  fortnight  had  been  try- 
ing to  make  up  his  mind  to  call  on  his  old  friend.  And 
for  a  fortnight  he  had  failed. 

He  had  already  seen  Mary  once  at  the  house,  when  she 
came  to  see  Lord  Sharrow,  who  was  devoted  to  her;  and 
once  in  the  village;  and  owing  to  her  frank  pleasure  in 
seeing  him  and  her  apparent  forgetfulness  of  things  that 
had  gone  before,  the  meetings  had  passed  off  in  comparative 
comfort. 

But  in  her  own  house,  surrounded  by  the  furniture  from 
the  Vicarage,  he  could  hardly  avoid  speaking  of  old  times ; 
in  common  decency  he  must  express  regret  for  her  father's 
death — and,  speaking  of  the  father,  who  had  always  been  a 
good  friend  to  him,  how  could  he  avoid  mentioning  Viola  ? 

Finally  he  had  settled  the  problem  in  his  own  fashion; 


292  SHARROW 

he  would  speak  about  the  Vicar,  and  he  would  not  speak 
about  Viola.  And  if  Mary  didn't  like  it,  she  must  do  the 
other  thing. 

So  he  had  come. 

Mary  asked  him  questions  in  a  way  that  suggested  to 
him  her  potential  excellency  as  a  schoolmistress;  questions 
clear,  deliberate,  to  the  point,  about  Lord  Sharrow's  health, 
about  some  cottages  he  had  persuaded  the  old  man  to  pull 
down,  about  some  village  tragedy. 

And  he  answered  her,  his  eyes  fixed  on  his  muffin,  which 
dripped,  powerless  to  charm  his  appetite,  in  order  to  see 
as  little  as  possible  of  the  things  that  so  called  back  to 
him  the  old  days  that  were  so  much  deader  than  Noah. 
He  knew  that  the  powdered  lady  was  smiling  at  him  with 
a  slight  divergence  in  her  black  eyes ;  in  his  boyhood  he  had 
called  her  the  old  girl  with  the  squint. 

On  the  table  by  Mary  lay  a  pair  of  ancient  silver  candle 
snuffers  that  had  held  for  him  one  of  the  strange,  inex- 
plicable charms  things  sometimes  hold  for  romantic  chil- 
dren. 

And  beside  Mary,  a  pile  of  books,  dolls,  stockings,  shawls, 
boxes  of  sweets,  and  other  little  gifts,  lay  on  a  small  bam- 
boo chair  covered  with  printed,  pomegranate-colored  velvet ; 
Vi  's  own  chair  it  had  been ;  a  thousand  times  he  had  seen 
her,  as  a  demure  little  girl,  sitting  on  it. 

"Have  you  seen  the  other  Sandy?"  Mary's  voice  awoke 
him  with  a  start. 

"Yes.  I  went  up  to  town  on  purpose  last  week.  He  is 
behaving  splendidly,  Mary,  and  so  is  his  wife.  It  is 
awfully  rough  on  them ;  they  have  twin  boys,  as  I  dare  say 
you  know." 

"Yes.  I  had  heard,  of  course.  It's  lucky  she  has 
money." 

"Isn't  it?  Keith  is  all  right  in  that  way,  too,  Sandy 
tells  me." 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  293 

"Yes.  It's  a  great  pity  he  made  that  foolish  marriage. 
Have  you  seen  Paul?" 

"No.     What  has  become  of  him?" 

Mary  tied  the  ribbon  around  the  package  on  her  knees 
with  a  little  jerk.  "He's  a  curate  somewhere  in  Somer- 
setshire. He  is  not  married.  I  saw  him  once  at  a  concert 
at  St.  James's  Hall.  He  has  grown  very  fat,  although  he's 
so  young,  and — his  mouth  is  redder  than  ever.  I  never 
could  bear  Paul." 

Sandy  laughed.  ' '  I  thought  you  were  too  good  to  dislike 
anyone,  Mary. ' ' 

"Am  I?"  she  retorted  quickly,  her  brown  eyes  full  of 
firelight  heightened  by  a  flash  of  temper  as  she  looked  up, 
slashing  her  scissors  sharply  together.  "Am  I  such  a  bore 
as  that?" 

"Nonsense — you  know  what  I  meant.  As  to  Paul,  I 
quite  agree  with  you.  There  was  always  something  wrong 
about  him" — he  bit  his  lip.  What  was  he  to  criticise  a 
struggling  young  parson  whose  only  real  fault,  so  far  as 
he  knew,  was  that  his  mouth  was  too  red? 

And  Mary  felt  that  his  own  words  had  somehow  had 
power  to  wound  him.  She  said  nothing,  but  her  eyes 
softened  as  they  bent  over  her  work. 

"Speaking  of  meeting  people,"  she  resumed  presently,  as 
he  finally  set  his  cup  and  untouched  muffin  on  the  tea  table, 
"I  saw  you,  you  know,  at  the  Grand  Prix  this  year." 

"So  Dingle  told  me." 

' '  You  were  walking  with — with  some  ladies ;  and  I  was  in 
the  Grand  Stand,  but  I  asked  one  of  my  party  to  take  me 
down,  and  we  looked  for  you  for  nearly  an  hour,  but  you 
had  gone.  I  was  so  excited!" 

"I  remember.  One  of  the  ladies  I  was  with  fainted  and 
I  had  to  take  her  home.  Were  you  long  in  Paris?" 

She  hesitated.    "About  a  fortnight." 

And  he  knew  that  Viola  had  been  there,  too. 


294  SHARROW 

Now  Mary  Wymondham,  of  course,  knew  quite  well  that 
there  was  some  mystery  connected  with  Sandy,  and  she 
had  no  intention  of  trying  to  solve  it.  But  there  was  an- 
other matter  which,  as  she  lived  in  Sharrow,  and  he  was  in 
all  probability  to  pass  the  rest  of  his  days  there,  must,  for 
the  sake  of  the  comfort  of  their  future  intercourse,  be 
settled. 

She  pondered  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then,  rising,  went 
to  the  writing  table  and,  bringing  back  the  photograph  that 
stood  on  it,  handed  it  to  Sandy. 

"This  is  Viola's  latest  picture,  Sandy.  How  do  you 
like  it?" 

He  was  not  a  tyrant  nor  a  conceited  man,  but  the  tragedy 
of  his  life  and  Viola  Wymondham  were  one  and  the  same 
thing,  and  it  came  to  him  with  a  distinct  shock  that  it 
could  be  touched  upon.  It  seemed  to  him  that  her  name 
should  never  have  been  mentioned  to  him;  and  here  was 
Mary  asking  him  what  he  thought  of  her  latest  photograph ! 

For  a  moment  he  did  not  speak  because  he  could  not, 
and  Mary  saw  it.  There  was  to  her,  naturally  enough, 
more  than  a  little  absurdity  in  his  attitude,  for  she  knew 
nothing  of  his  life  during  the  past  ten  years,  and  his  grave 
face  now  wore  none  of  the  more  obvious  traces  of  dissipa- 
tion. Fundamentally  a  very  healthy  man,  the  six  weeks 
that  had  elapsed  between  the  night  when  Dingle  found 
him  and  the  day  of  his  return  to  Sharrow  had  changed 
him  almost  unbelievably. 

He  looked,  now,  a  man  older  than  his  years,  to  be  sure, 
and  a  man  who  had  suffered — that  was  all. 

But  Mary,  seeing  this  much,  naturally  did  not  attribute 
all  the  suffering,  the  traces  of  which  she  saw,  to  his  boy- 
ish disappointment.  Surely  no  man  in  his  senses,  she 
reasoned  as  she  now  waited  for  him  to  speak,  could  care 
for  a  woman  after  ten  years'  separation  so  much  that  he 
could  not  bear  to  look  at  her  photograph ! 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  295 

To  her  healthy  mind  the  idea  was  monstrous,  and  she 
was  about  to  set  Sandy  down  as  a  poseur,  when  he  rose,  the 
photograph  still  in  his  hand. 

"It  is  a  beautiful  picture,"  he  said,  stammering  a  little. 
"I  hope  Viola  is  well?" 

As  he  said  the  words,  there  flashed  through  her  mind 
the  scene  in  the  Vicar's  study  when  Lord  Sharrow  made 
his  famous  apology.  "A  beautiful  woman,  sir — a  beautiful 
woman,"  the  old  man  had  said. 

And  Sandy  had  said,  "A  beautiful  picture." 

He  laid  the  photograph  down  on  the  table. 

"Well,  I  must  be  off,"  he  added,  in  his  usual  voice. 
"My  great-uncle  always  wants  to  see  me  before  he  goes  to 
bed." 

"How  is  he?" 

"Very  feeble.  Turner  says  he  can't  live  for  more  than 
a  few  weeks.  I  hope  with  all  my  heart  he  doesn't,  poor  old 
man." 

Mary  nodded  as  they  shook  hands.  "I  hope  so,  too. 
He  will  die  happy  now  that  you  have  come  home." 

Sandy  did  not  answer,  and  after  a  moment  took  his 
leave. 

When  he  had  gone,  she  cleared  away  her  odds  and  ends 
of  paper  and  ribbon,  and  set  her  room  in  order. 

"I  hope  he  will  come  often,"  she  said  aloud,  "but  he 
won't." 


CHAPTER  XLIX 

SYD  came  at  Christmas,  and  to  Sandy's  great  happiness 
the  boy  seemed  to  have  taken  his  sermon  on  Sharrow  to 
heart  more  than  the  older  man  had  ventured  to  hope  he 
would. 

"I — I  think  I  almost  know  what  you  mean  by  the  Feel- 
ing, Sandy,"  the  boy  said,  as  they  came  downstairs  after 
half  an  hour  with  the  old  lord.  "Even  the  old  boy  up- 
stairs— awful  and  rather  sickening,  as  he  is,  is — a  leaf  on 
the  tree.  And  when  he  falls  off — then  there  is  you." 

"And  you." 

"Yes,  and  me.  When  I  came  into  the  Great  Hall  this 
morning,  and  saw  the  old  armor  that  they  used  to  wear, 
it — well,  it  gave  me  a  queer  kind  of  sensation  down  my 
spine.  I  hope,"  he  added  more  thoughtfully  than  Sandy 
had  ever  heard  him  speak,  "that  it  is  not  just  because  it  is 
going  to  be  mine  some  day — and  my  son 's. ' ' 

"No  fear  of  that.  It's — it's  that  you  are  growing  older. 
You  must  read  the  books  I  used  to  love — and  if  you  like," 
he  continued,  a  little  shyly,  "  I  '11  tell  you  all  I  can  remem- 
ber about  the  house  itself." 

But  Rome  had  evidently  developed  a  new  strain  of 
poetry  in  the  boy;  he  showed  a  fondness  for  being  alone, 
and,  as  he  wandered  about  the  house,  learning  to  know  it,  as 
he  told  his  brother,  his  large  eyes  were  dreamy.  Sandy  was 
more  delighted  than  he  would  have  believed  himself  cap- 
able of  being  about  anything. 

He  gave  Syd  the  Tower  Room,  in  which  hung  his  old 
cricket  bat  and  his  favorite  pictures. 

296 


SHARROW  297 

"Ben  and  I  used  to  sit  here  and  talk  by  the  hour,"  he 
said,  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  visit  to  his  brother  in  his 
new  kingdom.  "You  remember  Ben  Frith?" 

' '  Of  course ;  how  is  he  ? " 

"I  don't  know.  I — I  have  lost  him."  On  hearing  his 
own  words,  Sandy  tried  to  laugh.  "I  mean  to  say  that  I 
have  not  seen  him  since  that  time  at  St.  Hubert — neither 
seen  nor  written  to  him." 

He  could  not  tell  Syd  that  on  the  occasion  of  Ben 's  com- 
ing out  to  see  him  a  I'improviste,  having  got  his  address 
from  Mrs.  Sharrow,  he  had  not  welcomed  the  gentle  in- 
truder, and  he  had  been  so  unlike  his  old  self  that  Ben 
had  gone  away  hurt  and  angry. 

Later,  Ben  had  written,  but  his  letter  came  at  a  time 
when  Sandy  threw  his  post  into  the  fire  every  day  without 
opening  it. 

Sandy  stood  by  the  window  from  which  he  had  pointed 
out  to  Ben  the  break  in  the  trees  under  which  the  Wy- 
mondham  girls  must  pass  when  they  went  for  their  walks. 
The  past  was  so  vivid  to  him  at  that  minute  that  even  Syd 
seemed  a  phantom. 

With  an  effort  he  collected  himself  and  returned  to  the 
fire.  It  was  five  years  since  he  had  seen  Ben;  he  would 
write  to  him,  he  said,  sitting  down  and  lighting  a  cigarette, 
and  invite  him  to  Sharrow. 

And  Ben  came. 

He  seemed  smaller  than  before,  and  he  was  very  shabby, 
but  he  was  still  happy  in  his  unclamorous  way;  London 
made  him  happy,  and  books,  and  a  potted  hyacinth,  and  a 
pair  of  new  boots,  and  half  a  dozen  oysters  with  a  bottle  of 
chablis. 

He  had  made  no  career  for  himself;  his  book  of  London 
verses  had  never  been  written ;  he  earned  a  very  small  pit- 
tance by  doing  research  work  under  his  father,  for  the  Brit- 
ish Museum.  His  father  had  married  again — a  most  sur- 


298  SHARROW 

prising  thing — and  the  three  and  a  little  girl  named  Mary- 
gold,  whom  even  now  Ben  in  his  absent-mindedness  called 
his  niece  instead  of  his  sister — still  lived  on  in  the  old 
house. 

"We  are  all  going  to  pieces  quite  gently  and  noiselessly," 
he  explained.  ' '  It  is  the  only  house  in  London  where  noth- 
ing is  ever  renewed.  The  bath  towels  were  the  last  thing 
to  give  out — we  use  ordinary  towels  for  our  baths  now,  and 
they  really  do  very  well,  only  it  takes  one  hours  to  dry 
oneself;  when  they  go  I  dare  say  we'll  have  to  put  on  our 
clothes  without  drying  ourselves,  and  then  we  shall  die 
of  pneumonia,  and  that  will  be  the  end  of  us." 

He  rubbed  his  thin  hands  together  and  seemed  quite 
pleased  with  the  prospect. 

"But  what's  your  stepmother  like,  Ben?" 

"Beads.    Beads  aU  through." 

"What  on  earth  do  you  mean?" 

"She's  artistic,  and  wears  one-piece  frocks  made  of 
flannel,  with  silk  embroidery  at  the  throat  and  wrists.  And 
she  adorns  herself  with  beads,  long  chains  of  'em.  You 
know  the  kind." 

"But  why  don't  she  buy  bath  towels  and  things?" 

"Serena?  Bless  your  heart,  she  has  no  money  to  buy 
bath  towels,"  elucidated  Ben  with  the  greatest  calmness. 
"She's  a  Buddhist." 

Ben  had  forgiven  Sandy  without  a  word  of  reproach, 
without  even  a  question,  and  Sandy  was  deeply  grateful 
to  him.  Ben's  life  lay  open  as  a  book  to  his  friend;  it 
apparently  never  occurred  to  the  little  scholar  that  Sandy's 
book  should  not  be  closed  to  him. 

And  closed  it  was,  and  locked  with  a  key,  and  the  key 
was  thrown  away,  Sandy  thought,  forever. 

Even  had  he  been  able,  without  pain  to  himself,  to  speak 
of  the  things  he  had  done  and  seen  during  that  last  decade, 
he  could  not  have  mentioned  them  to  Ben.  There  was 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  299 

about  the  shy,  rather  ridiculous-looking  little  man,  a  kind 
of  purity  that  a  worse  man  than  Sandy  would  have  spared. 

Once  Sandy,  in  the  middle  of  one  of  his  bad  nights,  went 
into  Ben's  room,  and  ruthlessly  waked  him. 

' '  I  say,  Ben,  get  up  and  talk  to  me,  for  God 's  sake ! ' ' 

Ben  sprang  out  of  bed  as  if  the  house  had  been  on  fire. 
He  was  an  absurd  sight  with  his  skinny,  yellow  legs  and 
his  old-fashioned  night-shirt  trimmed  with  narrow  red 
braiding — the  work  of  the  Buddhistic  Serena. 

"All  right,  old  chap,"  he  returned,  rubbing  his  eyes. 
*  *  What 's  wrong  ?  Anybody  ill  ? " 

"No,  but — I  can't  sleep  and — and  I  don't  want  to  be 
alone." 

"Right."  Ben  pulled  on  his  trousers,  wrapped  his  yel- 
low satin  eider-down  around  him,  and,  sitting  cross-legged 
on  his  bed,  waited. 

To  his  surprise,  Sandy  began  talking  very  rapidly,  with 
an  unusual  flow  of  words,  about  politics.  He  was,  he  de- 
clared, an  out-and-out  Unionist;  he  damned  one  minister, 
laughed  at  another,  predicted  the  immediate  downfall  of 
another. 

Ben  listened,  open-mouthed.  He  had  never  before  known 
Sandy  to  show  the  slightest  interest  in  politics. 

Presently  he  ventured  a  remark  that  showed  his  utter 
ignorance  as  to  whether  the  Prime  Minister  of  the  day 
was  a  Liberal  or  a  Unionist,  and  Sandy  laughed  a  nervous 
laugh  that  gradually  turned  to  his  normal  one,  and  seemed 
to  calm  him. 

"Poor  old  Ben — get  back  into  bed,  I  was  a  brute  to  dis- 
turb you,  but  you  don 't  mind,  do  you  ? ' ' 

"Of  course  I  don't,  and — I  wish  you'd  give  me  a  few 
more  tips  about  these — these  matters  of  public  interest. ' ' 

"No;  to  bed  you  go.     I'm  all  right  now — good-night." 

But  Ben  lay  a  long  time  wondering  what  it  had  all 
meant. 


300  SHARROW 

The  next  morning  at  breakfast  Syd  looked  up  from  his 
letters,  and  exclaimed  suddenly: 

"I  say,  Sandy,  you  do  look  seedy.  Look  as  if  you'd 
been  on  a  terrific  bust." 

Sandy,  who  was  pouring  himself  a  cup  of  black  coffee, 
knocked  the  silver  coffee-pot  against  his  cup  with  such  force 
that  the  delicate  porcelain  shattered,  and  the  coffee  splashed 
on  the  table  cloth. 

"Don't  talk  rot,  Syd — I  have  not  been  on  a  'terrific 
bust' — you  know  quite  well  that  I  never  drink  a  drop  of 
any  kind  of  spirits — and  I  wish  you  wouldn't  make  vulgar 
jokes!" 

The  boy  stared.  "Sorry,  old  man — you  do  look  bad, 
though;  doesn't  he,  Ben?" 

"Very.  If  it  were  me,  I'd  have  a  stiffish  brandy  and 
soda,"  prescribed  Ben  with  a  knowing  air.  "You  must 
have  got  a  chill,  Sandy." 

But  Sandy  declared  himself  to  be  perfectly  well,  and 
shortly  afterwards  went  out  for  a  long  ride. 

"Nervy,"  Syd  explained,  "awfully  nervy,  the  dear  old 
boy.  My  uncle  is  very  trying,  and  I  rather  think  Sandy 
hates  him." 

"Nonsense!     He  used  to  be  very  fond  of  him." 

' '  I  know, ' '  answered  the  boy  with  his  new  air  of  thought- 
fulness,  "but  I've  seen  Sandy  look  at  him  once  or  twice 
as  one  looks  at  a  rat  in  a  trap — or — at  someone  who  is 
behind  bars,  but  who  is  safe  from  one  only  because  of  the 
bars." 

' '  I  wonder !  At  all  events,  if  it 's  his  doing,  it  must  soon 
cease — he  can't  possibly  live  much  longer.  And  then " 

Syd  nodded.  "Yes.  Then  it'll  be  Sandy's  turn.  I  say, 
Ben,  did  you  know  he  was  never  going  to  marry?" 

"  No ;  who  says  he  isn  't  ?  " 

"He  did.  He  told  me  that  as  he  wasn't  going  to,  I  was 
his  heir,  and  that — I  must.  Marry,  I  mean." 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  301 

Ben  puffed  at  his  pipe,  and  ruffled  his  nearly  impalpable 
hair  into  a  kind  of  aureole. 

''That's  a  pity.  He  ought  to  marry.  Too  good  to 
waste." 

"Yes,  he  is.  But — as  long  as  he  won't "  The  boy 

hesitated,  blushing  a  little. 

"As  long  as  he  won't,"  Ben  agreed,  eyeing  him  with 
grandfatherly  solicitude,  "you  must.  All  right,  Syd.  You 
might  marry  my  little  nie — sister.  She's  four,  and  very 
pretty." 

"Pooh,"  returned  Syd,  feeling  his  moustache;  "she's 
years  too  young." 


CHAPTER  L 

ONE  evening  early  in  February,  Syd  asked  Sandy  to 
come  to  London  with  him  for  a  concert  that  was  to  be 
given  the  next  day  at  the  Bechstein  Hall  by  Senorita 
Maria  Paz  Suarez. 

"Me?  My  dear  boy,  I  can't  tell  'God  save  the  Queen' 
from  the  'Marseillaise'." 

Syd  laughed.  "Well,  as  she  isn't  going  to  play  either 
the  one  or  the  other,  that  doesn't  much  matter.  Come 
along,  Sandy,  it  will  please  her  awfully." 

Sandy,  who  lay  almost  invisible  in  a  huge  leather  chair 
in  the  smoking-room,  crossed  his  legs. 

"I  don't  know  that  I  care  very  much  about  pleasing 
Spanish  pianists — do  you,  Ben?" 

"Not"  a  rap.  Nothing  is  of  profounder  indifference  to 
me,"  declared  Ben,  "except  possibly  Kooshians." 

Syd,  who  stood  on  the  hearthrug,  shook  his  head  im- 
patiently. 

"Nonsense!  They  are  awfully  poor,  and  she  is  doing 
it  to  help  her  father  educate  her  two  sisters ;  and  I — well,  I 
told  Don  Ramon  I  'd  try  to  get  some  people  to  go. ' ' 

"That's  different,"  observed  Sandy.     "Ben  shall  go." 

"All  right,  Kid,"  Ben  agreed.  "I  will,  I  don't  mind  at 
all,  and  I'll  take  Serena  and  Marygold.  They'll  like  it." 
After  a  moment  he  added:  "I  rather  like  piano-playing; 
but  little  concerts  like  this  always  make  me  want  to  cry 
— the  many  seats  that  are  always  empty ;  the  day  clothes  of 
the  audience,  of  whom  many  are  obviously  'paper';  the 

302 


SHARROW  303 

gloom — for  it  invariably  rains ;  the  nervousness  of  the  per- 
former's  mother  and  sisters  and  friends.  The  very  piano 
looks  lonely,  as  if  it  had  wandered  in  under  the  impression 
that  its  pals,  the  drums  and  the  fiddles,  were  to  be  there,  and 
then,  when  the  debutante  comes  on,  her  knees  shaking, 
her  hands,  one  knows,  as  cold  as  ice — my  knees  shake,  and 
I  have  to  blow  my  fingers  to  keep  'em  from  freezing.  Bah ! 
it 's  a  dreadful  form  of  amusement. ' ' 

''You  won't  see  Maria  Paz's  knees  shaking,"  Syd 
laughed,  "nor  her  hands  getting  blue." 

Out  of  the  depths  of  his  comfortable  chair  Sandy 's  head 
emerged,  slowly,  like  a  watchful  snail  from  its  shell. 

"Why  not?"  he  asked. 

Syd  laughed  again.  "Because  you  won't.  You  can't 
see  what  doesn't  exist,  you  know,  and  she  is  as  brave  as  a 
little  lion.  I  never  knew  a  gamer  girl.  Besides,  she  knows 
she  can  play.  Her  little  thin  hands  are  like  a  bird's  claws, 
but  they  are  strong" — he  paused,  with  a  thoughtful  sip  of 
his  soda-water — "as  a  baboon's." 

Sandy  dropped  comfortably  back  into  the  shadow. 
* '  Sounds  a  fascinating  lady, ' '  he  said,  ' '  with  her  claws  as 
strong  as  a  baboon's  hands." 

"Yes,  Syd,"  joined  in  Ben,  "better  be  careful;  these 
languorous  Spaniards,  you  know,  are  dangerous." 

Syd  smiled,  a  peculiar,  thoughtful  smile.  "I  think,"  he 
said  slowly,  "that  Maria  Paz  Suarez  is  as  ugly  a  woman  as 
I  ever  saw  in  my  life.  She  knows  it,  too." 

"Poor  girl!"  said  Sandy,  striking  a  match,  whose  light 
showed  a  power  of  sympathy  on  his  face.  "A  dreadful 
handicap  for  a  woman  of  her  metier.  I  saw  her  in  Rome, 
Syd ;  I  remember  her  father,  but  didn  't  notice  her. ' ' 

"No,  one  wouldn't.  "Well,  she  is  as  thin  as  a  rail,  her 
skin  is  sallow,  her  eyes  little  and  queer-set,  her  mouth  is — 
oh,  very  ugly,  though  her  teeth  are  good,  and  she  has  no 
more  figure  than  a  lead  pencil." 


304  SHARROW 

"Poor  thing!"  Ben  looked  ready  to  weep  as  he  polished 
his  spectacles  furiously  with  his  handkerchief.  "It's  a 
shame  that  a  girl  should  ever  be  so  utterly  without  charm. 
Poor  soul!  she's  doomed  to  failure  in  London,  then.  She'd 
stand  a  far  better  chance  if  she  played  rather  badly,  and 
had  beautiful  hair,  or — or  pretty  eyes. ' ' 

He  was  really  painfully  sorry  for  the  girl  he  had  never 
seen.  Pity  rose  to  a  passion  in  him. 

But  Syd  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Oh,  she's  not  a 
monster,  you  know,  Ben.  And  she  plays  like  an  angel,  / 
think." 

Sandy  rose.  "Well,  now  to  bed;  I'm  dead  with  sleep. 
We  can  take  the  eleven-forty-five,  have  plenty  of  time  for 
lunch,  and  then  well  go  and  support  the  claw-handed 
gorilla. ' ' 

"I'll  send  a  wire  to  Serena,"  added  Ben,  "and  I  can 
get  one  or  two  men  to  go,  if  you  like,  Syd. ' ' 

They  went  slowly  upstairs,  parting  at  Ben's  door. 

"It's  awfully  good  of  you  two,"  Syd  said.  "Poor  Don 
Ramon  will  be  awfully  grateful." 

When,  the  next  afternoon,  the  three  men  watched  the 
debutante  as  she  settled  herself  at  the  lonely  looking  piano, 
Ben  whispered: 

"You're  a  slanderer,  Syd;  she  isn't  in  the  least  like  a 
gorilla. ' ' 

"Shut  up,  Ben!"  retorted  the  boy.  "I  never  said  she 
was. ' ' 

A  sallow-faced  woman  in  a  blue-white  frock  trimmed 
with  cheap  lace,  her  oily  black  hair  arranged  in  the  Japan- 
ese looking  aureole  that  in  '95  was  not  so  common  as  it  is 
now,  her  flat,  bony  wrists,  boldly  naked,  the  pianist  was 
in  truth  very  ugly,  very  unattractive. 

When  she  was  settled  to  her  satisfaction,  she  swept  her 
audience  with  a  look  that  seemed  to  express  a  fierce  loathing 
for  every  individual  member  of  it,  gave  a  little  shrug,  as  if 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  305 

fo  herself  she  said:  "Oh,  well,  I  suppose  I  must  play,  little 
though  you  deserve  it,"  and  began  the  first  number. 

It  was  a  Chopin  etude,  and  she  treated  it  as  if  it  had 
been  a  mouse,  and  she  a  cat;  she  positively  tore  its  vitals 
out,  with  a  malignance  and  a  brilliancy  that  were  strange. 
Her  triumph,  though  Sandy  and  Ben  were  too  ignorant 
to  know  it,  lay  in  that  the  strangeness  of  her  interpretation 
drew  all  attention  away  from  her  technique.  One  took  for 
granted  that  her  fierce  little  fingers  were  perfectly  accurate, 
that  her  strength  and  her  exactness  were  well  balanced  and 
unerring.  One  wondered  only  at  the  things  the  music 
meant,  as  she  ripped  it  out  of  the  patient  ivory,  holding 
up  with  malicious  glee,  it  seemed  to  the  interested  audi- 
ence, a  rather  unpleasant  secret  of  the  life  of  the  late 
Frederic  Chopin. 

When  she  ceased  playing,  and  sat  immovable,  her  hands 
lying  on  her  lap,  Ben  said  under  his  breath:  "Well,  by 
Jove !  she  can  play ! ' ' 

Sandy  said  nothing,  but  sat  with  his  brows  pulled  down, 
until  his  eyes  were  nearly  hidden. 

The  audience,  which  was  of  the  entirely  unappreciative 
kind  that  so  often  falls  to  the  lot  of  debutantes,  clapped 
mechanically.  At  the  back,  some  newcomers  chattered 
about  the  rain,  which,  it  appeared,  was  pelting. 

"Well,  Sandy,"  asked  Syd  anxiously,  "wasn't  I  right?" 

Sandy  turned,  his  face  tender.  "You  were,  Sydkin;  I 
should  say  she  is  wonderful.  And  it's  nice  of  you  to  take 
such  an  interest  in  the  poor  thing.  I  tell  you  what,  we'll 
see  what  we  can  do  to  help  her." 

The  boy's  face  glowed.  "Thanks,  Sandy.  If  you  could 
know  how  they  live,  poor  things,  to  keep  the  little  sisters 
in  a  good  convent  school — I  can't  tell  you  how  I  respect 
Maria  P&z." 

Maria  Paz,  still  with  her  air  of  fierce  scorn  of  her  hearers, 
now  cast  another  pearl  before  them. 


306  SHARROW 

It  was  a  pearl  of  exceeding  delicacy  and  lustre,  this 
time,  a  thing  so  ethereal  and  whimsical  that,  if  the  spirit 
that  had  inspired  her  rendering  of  the  etude  had  still 
abided  under  her  flat,  cashmere  chest,  it  would  have  been 
trampled  to  pieces. 

But  the  girl  apparently  had  at  her  call  a  series  of  goblin 
controls,  and  this  one  was  an  elf  of  such  exquisite  cobweb 
lightness  that  even  the  wet  people  at  the  back  stopped 
fidgetting  and  listened. 

Her  face  had  changed,  too,  and  she  seemed  to  be  listen- 
ing with  a  sort  of  malicious  mischief  to  the  whispered  story 
her  fingers  were  coaxing  out  of  the  piano. 

It  was  thus  with  every  number  of  her  very  well  chosen 
and  varied  programme. 

And,  as  her  face  changed,  except  in  the  one  point  of 
her  settled  scorn  for  the  audience,  with  every  number, 
Sandy  watched  her  with  interest. 

She  was  unlike  any  woman  he  had  ever  seen ;  she  was,  as 
Ben  had  said,  utterly  without  charm ;  she  was  ugly,  and  she 
was  dressed  as  only  a  middle-class  Spanish  woman  can 
dress. 

But  she  had  a  strong  personality,  and  it  seemed  to  send 
out  some  tentacle  or  other  which  fastened  on  him. 

There,  too,  was  the  knowledge  that  she  sacrificed  herself 
for  the  education  of  her  sisters. 

Sandy  glanced  at  Syd;  he  understood  and  he  sympa- 
thized strongly  with  the  girl  who  had  done,  was  doing,  lit- 
erally, those  things  which  he  would  so  gladly  have  done 
for  his  brother. 

At  the  end  of  the  concert,  when  two  baskets  of  flowers 
had  been  handed  up  to  Sefiorita  Suarez,  and  the  audience 
was  leaving  the  room,  Ben  was  stopped  by  a  rather  bat- 
tered looking  man  with  a  shining  bald  head  and  a  reddish 
nose. 


SHARROW  307 

"Hallo,  Frith!  you  here?  I've  just  been  talking  to  Se- 
rena. She  looks  very  happy." 

' '  She  is ;  she 's  always  happy.  I  say,  Copley,  it 's  a  bit  of 
luck  meeting  you !  What  about  this  girl,  eh  ?  I  mean  the 
pianist?  Good,  isn't  she?" 

"Have  you  been  losing  your  heart  to  the  dreamy  Span- 
iard. The  first  sight  of  her  is  something  of  a  blow,  isn't 
it?"  said  the  man,  who  was  the  accredited  musical  critic 
of  a  popular  morning  paper. 

"She's  a  friend  of  a  friend  of  mine.  How  is  her 
playing?" 

Copley's  face  grew  suddenly  serious.  "I'll  tell  you, 
Ben,  in  my  humble  opinion  the  girl  'd  be  a  very  great 
artist  but  for  one  thing." 

Sandy  and  Syd  stood  listening,  with  rather  dispropor- 
tionately eager  faces. 

"But  for  what  one  thing?"  Ben  insisted 

"This.  She  isn't.  A  great  artist,  I  mean.  She's  got 
a  really  extraordinary  technique,  like  a  man's,  nearly — 
and  she's  as  clever  as  the  old  Nick.  But  she's — she's  jeer- 
ing all  the  time.  I  firmly  believe,"  added  the  oracle,  who 
really  was  a  very  conscientious  man,  and,  as  he  himself 
would  have  said,  never  lied  about  his  own  job,  "that  she 
knows  herself  that  she's  a — a  kind  of  humbug,  and  she  is 
laughing  at  herself  and  at  everyone  she  can  fool,  the  whole 
time." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  Syd  interrupted,  coming  nearer. 
"You  are  writing  up  the  concert,  aren't  you?" 

"I  am." 

Ben  introduced  them,  and  Syd  went  on,  "Well,  you  see, 
I  know  her,  and — you  are  wrong.  She  is  most  serious  about 
the  music,  and  does  not  blaguer  it  at  all.  It's — it's  her 
whole  life." 

Copley,  who  looked,  with  his  flattish  nose  and  upturned 


308  SHARROW 

moustache,  rather  like  an  unsuccessful  satyr,  studied  the 
boy's  ardent  face  in  silence  for  a  moment. 

Then  he  said  rather  gently:  "Ah,  well — if  you  know 
her !  And  as  you  do,  here 's  a  word  of  advice,  Mr.  Sharrow : 
whether  the  lady  is  in  earnest  or  not  has,  of  course,  less 
than  nothing  to  do  with  her  success  or  failure  as  a  pianist 
in  London.  Serious  musicians  have  been  known  to  fail," 
he  added  dryly.  "But  if  she  wants  to  make  money,  you 
get  your  mother  or  your  sister  to  tell  her  how  to  dress, 
and  to  make  her  wash  the  oil  out  of  her  hair — a  female 
Liszt  would  starve  in  London,  if  she  was  a  frump." 

When  Sandy  and  Ben  and  Syd  reached  the  door,  it  was 
pouring,  and  they  waited  while  a  poor  wretch,  far  gone  in 
consumption,  fetched  them  a  cab. 

"That's  very  good  advice  of  your  friend's,  Ben,"  Syd 
said,  his  brows  knit  thoughtfully.  ' '  Her  clothes  are  appall- 
ing. She  has  to  make  'em  all  herself,  poor  soul,  but  the 
Duchess  says  her  bad  taste  is  a  real  gift.  I  say,  Ben,  per- 
haps your  stepmother  could  give  her  a  tip. ' ' 

Ben  whistled.  "You've  never  seen  Serena!  Ah,"  he 
added,  as  a  thin  woman  in  a  dark  green  dressing-gown  but- 
toned up  the  back,  over  which  she  wore  a  man's  mackin- 
tosh coat,  came  vaguely  toward  them,  as  if  not  quite  sure 
whether  they  were  phantoms.  With  one  hand  she  was 
twisting  a  chain  of  bright  blue  beads  that  hung  around  her 
neck. 

The  child  with  her  was  charming,  and  stood  holding 
Ben's  hand  affectionately,  as  he  introduced  Sandy  and 
Syd. 

Serena  was  delighted  to  meet  them.  Henry  had  lost  his 
goloshes  and  she  was  sure  she  didn't  know  where  on  earth 
he  had  left  them.  Her  smile,  though  vague,  was  in- 
tensely sweet,  and  her  eyes  were  like  those  of  a  very  young 
girl. 

"But,"  she  went  on,  retrieving  Marygold's  hand,  as  the 


SHARROW  309 

derelict  returned  with  the  cab,  "he  hadn't  caught  cold 
after  all,  so  it  didn't  matter." 

She  refused  Sandy's  offer  of  a  lift,  not  by  saying  she 
would  not  accept  it,  but  by  smiling,  murmuring  something, 
and  disappearing  in  the  crowd. 

"Father  thinks  she  is  so  practical,"  Ben  said  with  a 
chuckle.  "They  are  beautifully  happy." 

On  their  way  to  Sandy's  club,  Sandy  asked  Syd  if  he 
had  sent  Miss  Suarez  any  flowers. 

No,  Syd  had  forgotten.  "Better  send  her  some  now,  it 
will  please  her.  Tell  the  man  to  stop  at  Solomon 's. ' ' 

And  when  Syd  had  made  his  selection,  Sandy  ordered  a 
second  offering. 

"No,  I'll  not  send  my  card — no  use  in  that,"  he  ex- 
plained to  Syd,  ' '  as  she  doesn  't  know  me ;  but  it  will  please 
her,  poor  thing!" 

"She  will  be,"  Ben  added  benevolently,  "a  much  be- 
flowered  baboon. ' ' 


CHAPTER  LI 

THE  next  morning  Syd  brought  several  newspapers  into 
Sandy's  room  before  the  elder  brother  was  up. 

"I  say,  Sandy,"  cried  the  boy  indignantly,  "two  of  the 
papers  don't  even  mention  it,  and  the  other  one  says " 

"Don't  mention  what?"  yawned  Sandy,  who  had  had 
one  of  his  bad  nights,  and  was  consequently  sleepy  and 
tired. 

"The  concert,  of  course.  The  Standard  says,  'Miss 
Suarez  possesses  a  fine  technique,  and  we  may  hope  to  hear 
her  again' — now  isn't  that  beastly?" 

"There  are  more  than  three  morning  papers  in  this 
town,  my  son.  Tell  Anderson  to  get  the  lot." 

"Thanks,  I  will.  But,  oh,  they  will  be  so  disappointed. 
They  had  counted  on  a  success,  and  it  meant  such  a  lot  to 
them." 

Sandy,  partly  because  he  had  been  really  interested  in 
the  strange  little  Spaniard,  and  partly  because  it  was  one 
of  his  principles  to  try  to  turn  his  mind  from  brooding 
by  applying  it  to  a  contemplation  of  the  affairs  of  other 
people,  roused  himself  and  sat  up  in  bed,  his  red  hair 
ruffled,  his  eyes  heavy  with  lack  of  sleep. 

"Draw  my  bath,  Anderson,  will  you — and  then  go  out 
and  get  as  many  of  the  morning  papers  as  you  can." 

The  man  did  as  he  was  bidden,  and  while  Sandy  splashed 
in  the  next  room,  Syd  talked  to  him  through  the  half  open 
door.  The  boy's  sympathy  pleased  his  brother. 

310 


SHAREOW  311 

Syd  had  always  been  a  lovable  boy,  but  he  had  been  very 
difficult  to  stir;  his  imagination  had  seemed  to  refuse  to 
kindle  at  any  external  torch ;  Sandy  had  never  forgotten  his 
vain  efforts  to  make  his  brother  love  Sharrow  as  he  did. 
And  as  Syd  grew  up,  this  indefinable  aloofness  had  not  left 
him.  It  could  hardly  be  stigmatized  as  selfishness,  for  he 
was  warm-hearted  and  generous;  but  he  appeared  to  be  of 
those  people  who  must  always  act  on  an  impulse  from 
within  their  own  souls,  whose  emotions  no  hand  can  stimu- 
late into  action. 

Rome  had  done  him  good;  he  was  more  sympathetic, 
made  more  of  an  effort  to  understand  what  other  people 
were  feeling ;  he  seemed  to  have  lost  a  delicate  shell  he  had 
hitherto  worn,  and  to  be  more  approachable.  That  he,  a 
beauty-loving  boy  of  twenty,  should  so  champion  the  ugly 
woman  he  had  likened  to  a  baboon  seemed  good  to  Sandy ; 
it  showed  real  kindness. 

Thus  Sandy,  as  he  shaved  and  dressed,  and  Syd,  search- 
ing the  papers  in  vain  for  any  of  the  appreciation  and 
praise  he  wanted  for  his  friend. 

"Poor  Don  Ramon,"  the  boy  mourned.  "He  will  be 
so  sad." 

"And  she,  too,  of  course." 

"No,  she  will  be  very  angry,  and  all  the  bones  in  her 
face  will  show,"  Syd  said,  thoughtfully.  "It's  funny,  San- 
dear,  she  is  so  ugly,  but  her  bones  are  really  rather  beauti- 
ful." 

"Ben  would  say  it's  a  pity  she  doesn't  wear  them  out- 
side, then.  Eggs  and  bacon,  Syd?" 

But  presently,  when  they  had  finished  breakfast,  and 
gone  out  to  visit  Syd's  tailor,  their  thoughts  again  went 
back  to  the  poor  foreigners  whose  welcome  had  been  so 
meagre. 

"Would  she  play  in  drawing-rooms?"  Sandy  asked  sud- 
denly, to  the  surprise  of  the  Alsatian  tailor,  who  nearly 


312  SHARROW 

swallowed  a  pin  in  his  amazement  over  the  totally  irrele- 
vant remark. 

But  Syd  did  not  find  the  remark  other  than  most  a  pro- 
pos,  for  it  nearly  answered  a  thought  of  his  own. 

"I  don't  know.  I  should  think  she'd  have  to.  They 
must  live." 

"I  was  wondering  if  Lady  Hainault  might  engage  her. 
She  rather  likes  you,  doesn't  she?" 

Syd  blushed  a  little.  Lady  Hainault  was  an  old  lady 
possessed  of  so  many  granddaughters  and  great-nieces  that 
any  young  man  might  blush  at  the  thought  of  her. 

Sandy,  whom  Ben  had  told  what  Syd  had  hinted  about 
his  matrimonial  plans,  laughed  slyly.  ' '  The  Freckled  Bar- 
rington  Twin  is  your  favorite,  isn't  she?" 

"Shut  up!  Does  that  sleeve  look  all  right  to  you, 
Sandy?" 

"Quite." 

They  went  into  the  black,  wet  street,  and  stood  looking 
at  the  gathering  fog. 

' '  I  say,  Sandy,  I  can 't  stand  this !  Think  of  those  poor 
souls  who  never  even  saw  a  fog  before,  sitting  in  rotten 
cheap  lodgings  reading  those  awful  papers.  I'm  going  to 
see  them." 

"Do.  We'll  lunch  at  the  club  at  two,  and  then  we  can 
consult,  and  if  necessary  (only  if  strictly  unavoidable, 
mind)  look  up  Lady  Hainault.  She  is,  I  understand,  visit- 
ing Sir  John  Barrington  in  Eccleston  Square. ' ' 

It  did  him  good  to  chaff  Syd;  it  did  him  more  good  to 
see  the  boy  developing  into  a  gentle-hearted  man;  and 
Sandy  knew  that  his  own  future  lay  almost  entirely  in 
Syd's  hands.  When  Syd  married,  his  wife  should  be 
Sandy's  daughter,  his  children  Sandy's  grandchildren.  He 
saw  nothing  ridiculous  in  this  idea;  he  felt  very  old,  and 
Syd  was  far  more  like  a  son  than  a  brother  to  him. 

And  the  Freckled  Barrington  Twin,  if  the  boy's  fancy 


SHARROW  313 

ever  developed  into  anything  more,  would  be  very  satis- 
factory as  the  wife  of  the  heir  to  Sharrow ;  she  was  a  tall, 
strong,  ungainly  child  at  present,  barely  seventeen,  but 
she  had  beautiful  shining  eyes  and  a  mind  like  an  open 
book.  Her  blood,  too,  was  good. 

His  mind,  thus  occupied  with  match-making,  Sandy  went 
back  to  his  hotel  for  his  umbrella. 

On  his  table  he  found  two  letters  which  had  been  sent 
on  from  Sharrow.  One  was  a  bill,  the  other,  which  he  read 
through  with  an  unmoved  face,  was  a  wild  appeal  for  for- 
giveness from  Maggie  Penrose. 

"Can  you  never  forgive  me!"  she  wrote.  "Is  there  no 
pity  in  you?  Sandy,  Sandy,  I  am  punished  enough.  I 
don't  ask  for  much — just  write  and  say  you  forgive  me,  and 
will  one  day  consent  to  seeing  me  sometimes  as  a  friend. 
Send  me  just  one  word,  'yes,'  that  I  may  have  some  peace." 

He  tore  it  into  many  pieces  and  dropped  them  into  the 
waste-paper  basket.  Fool,  to  expect  forgiveness  from 
him! 

And  Syd,  coming  back  full  of  excitement,  found  his 
brother  looking  old  and  stern,  as  he  had  looked  sometimes 
in  Rome. 

' '  Anything  wrong,  Sandy  ? ' '  the  boy  asked.  ' '  No  ?  Good. 
Well — it's  just  as  I  feared — the  old  man  is  in  despair. 
They — they  say  such  strange  things  in  Latin  tongues,  don't 
they?  I  mean  about  God,  and — the  Madonna." 

"Yes.     And  she— the  girl?" 

"Furious.  Says  all  English  are  peegs — her  English  is 
so  funny — and  she  will  never  play  again.  She  will  be  a 
cook  or  a  crossing-sweeper,  but  never  a  pianist.  I  was  so 
sorry!  Their  rooms  are  so  awful,  in  an  Italian  hotel  in 
Soho.  And  Spaniards  are  used  to  such  beautiful  cleanli- 
ness, you  know;  their  little  apartment  in  Rome  was  like  a 
new  pin.  Ugh!  it's  awful."  His  young  face  was  pale  with 
sympathy.  "I  say,  Sandy,  I  suppose  you  couldn't  ask 


314  SHARROW 

them  to  Sharrow  for  a  few  days.  It  seems  to  be  the  old 
man's  pride  that  is  so  hurt,  and  that " 

Sandy  hesitated.  "I  don't  like  asking  people  there — 
he  is  so  very  feeble." 

"But  he  told  you  to  treat  the  house  as  if  it  were  yours, 
Sandear." 

"I  know."  Sandy  was  silent  a  moment,  then  added: 
"All  right,  Syd,  I  will.  You  are  right,  it'll  soothe  the 
poor  old  man 's  pride ;  and  they  are  quiet  people. ' ' 

The  next  day  but  one,  Don  Ramon  Suarez  and  his  daugh- 
ter arrived  at  Sharrow. 


CHAPTER  LII 

SANDY,  in  spite  of  his  interest  in  Maria  Paz  Suarez,  saw 
but  little  of  her  during  her  stay.  He  was  at  that  time 
extremely  busy  with  various  matters  connected  with  the 
administration  of  the  estate,  his  tasks  being  made  the  more 
difficult  by  the  necessity  of  submitting  each  detail,  as  the 
work  went  on,  to  Lord  Sharrow.  The  old  man's  mind,  as 
his  body  grew  more  feeble,  seemed  to  become  clearer  and 
stronger  than  it  had  been  for  some  time  past. 

Every  day,  after  working  for  several  hours  with  the 
steward,  Sandy  was  obliged  to  submit  what  he  had  planned 
to  the  old  man  for  approval,  and  he  was  amazed  at  the 
nonogenarian  's  memory  and  tenacity  of  detail. 

Wrapped  in  one  or  other  of  his  gay  dressing-gowns,  Lord 
Sharrow  sat  in  his  great  chair  by  the  fire  and  listened  as 
Sandy  read  aloud  his  notes.  Then,  extending  a  claw-like 
hand,  the  owner  of  the  estate  took  the  papers,  put  on  his 
tortoise-shell  spectacles,  and  with  eyes  verified  his  ears, 
as  if  he  mistrusted  tk«  absolute  veracity  of  his  ear-trumpet. 

As  a  rule,  Sandy's  ideas  pleased  him,  but  occasionally 
he  would  take  his  huge  blue  pencil  and  laboriously  cross 
out  a  part  of,  or  even  everything  he  had  read,  and  Sandy's 
work  had  to  be  done  over. 

"I  am  not  dead  yet,  you  see,"  he  used  to  say  with  his 
ancient  chuckle.  "It's  marvellous  what  total  abstinence 
and  early  hours  will  do  for  a  man,  eh,  Sandy?" 

And  Sandy  would  bow  gravely,  and  go  his  way.  He  had 
not  forgiven  his  enemy  and  made  no  pretence  of  having 

315 


316  SHARROW 

done  so.  Luckily,  his  great-uncle  did  not  care  a  rush  about 
his  forgiveness. 

Nurse  Blake,  remembering  her  patient's  extreme  impa- 
tience for  his  newly-discovered  heir's  arrival,  once  ex- 
pressed to  that  heir  her  surprise  at  Lord  Sharrow's  appar- 
ent indifference  to  him,  now  that  he  was  there. 

"He  used  to  put  himself  into  a  fever,  sir,"  she  said 
once ;  ' '  day  after  day  it  went  on ;  where  you  were,  why 
they  couldn't  find  you,  why  you  didn't  come.  Once  he 
made  himself  very  bad  in  the  night  over  the  idea  that  you 
were  dead.  It  was  really  quite  painful — I  was  so  sorry  for 
him.  And  now  that  you  are  here " 

Sandy  looked  past  her  and  out  of  the  window,  a  little 
smile  on  his  face. 

"That's  just  it,  Nurse — I  am  here.  It  was  not  the  man 
he  was  fretting  for,  it  was  his  heir." 

And  yet,  as  he  walked,  an  hour  later,  to  Dingle's,  to 
tell  him  that  the  morning's  work  had  been  in  vain  and 
must  be  entirely  done  over  again,  he  thought  of  his  own 
words,  and  wondered. 

Was  it  only  that — that  he  was  the  heir? 

He  recalled  a  thousand  things  in  the  past  that  showed 
real  affection  for  him  on  the  old  man's  part;  the  ring  he 
wore  was  a  proof  of  this,  the  allowance  that  had  been  sent 
regularly  to  his  banker's  during  the  long  years  of  his  un- 
broken silence.  And  how  many  things  had  his  great-uncle 
said  to  him  in  his  boyhood  that  showed  beyond  a  doubt 
how  welcome  he  would  have  been,  even  then,  as  his  heir. 

"He  did  like  me,"  Sandy  declared,  under  his  breath, 
"even  in  spite  of  what  he  did.  He  was  fond  of  me." 

He  had  reached  Dingle's  beautiful  little  Georgian  house, 
and  as  he  rang  the  bell,  he  added,  in  silence:  "Poor  old 
man!" 

Impersonally  through  the  medium  of  his  brain,  he  could 
be  sorry  for  his  enemy  in  his  weakness  and  extreme  age, 


SHARROW  317 

but,  emotionally,  he  could  never  forgive  what  had  been 
done  to  him. 

And  as  the  dull  days  slipped  by  like  drops  of  rain- 
water on  a  window-pane,  sliding  almost  unmarked  in  their 
similarity  to  each  other  into  eternity,  he  began  to  wonder 
if  the  ancient  man  by  the  fire  realized  this. 

Sometimes,  when  their  work  was  over,  on  the  days  when 
Lord  Sharrow  was  what  he  called  "better,"  the  two  men 
would  talk  always  about  the  thing  that  interested  them 
so  deeply :  Sharrow. 

There  was  a  bit  of  meadow-land  to  the  westward,  close 
by  where  Sandy  had  so  long  ago  bought  his  first  dog,  and 
to  the  old  and  the  young  man  the  acquisition  of  these  few 
acres  was  a  matter  of  paramount  importance. 

"It  would  round  it  off,  Sandy — just  here  it  is,  see?" 
Lord  Sharrow  said,  bending  over  the  colored  map  that 
Sandy  had  spread  before  him,  ' '  round  it  off,  and  give  us  a 
clear  forty  thousand  acres.  We  must  have  it." 

Unfortunately  the  owner  of  the  coveted  land  was  an 
enemy  of  the  house.  Many  years  ago  there  had  been  trou- 
ble connected  with  a  right  of  way  through  a  small  wood 
belonging  to  his  great  neighbor,  and  he  had  not  forgotten 
this. 

Twice  Sandy  went  to  see  him  to  try  to  persuade  him 
to  sell  the  meadows,  and  twice  he  failed.  Farmer  Murdoch 
would  keep  his  meadows,  because  it  pleased  him  so  to  do. 

It  was  surprising  to  see  how  keen  was  Lord  Sharrow 's 
interest  in  these  negotiations,  and  the  vigor  of  his  denun- 
ciations of  the  wrong-headed  farmer. 

But  in  spite  of  his  mental  alertness,  the  old  man  was 
failing  fast,  and  gradually,  Sandy  saw,  his  mind  began 
to  give  up  its  hold  on  every  idea  save  the  one  that  had, 
in  spite  of  his  badness,  and  through  all  his  vicissitudes, 
been  the  ruling  one  of  his  life. 

He  failed  to  recognize  Syd  one  day  when  the  boy  came 


318  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

in  "to  cheer  the  poor  old  dear  up  a  bit";  and  even  Mary 
Wymondham,  who  had  been  a  great  favorite  of  his  during 
the  last  few  years,  was  met  with  a  vacant  nod. 

Dr.  Turner,  old  Gill's  partner,  told  Sandy  one  day  that 
the  end  could  not  be  far  off. 

"The  early  Spring  days  will  do  it,"  he  said.  "He  will 
probably  go  out  quite  quietly,  like  a  spent  lamp.  There's 
no  more  oil." 

And  yet  the  lamp  occasionally  nickered  strongly  for  a 
moment,  always  at  something  connected  with  Sharrow. 
*  Sandy  was  very  gentle  with  the  old  man;  his  conscious- 
ness of  his  real  relentlessness,  his  undying  resentment  for 
what  the  old  man  had  done,  made  him  a  little  ashamed 
and  lent  to  his  manner  a  kindness  that  caused  Mary  Wy- 
mondham's  fine  dark  eyes  to  look  at  him  with  a  kindness 
even  greater,  for  hers  came  from  her  heart. 

She  did  not  know  why  Sandy  hated  the  old  man  whose 
name  and  honors  he  was  to  bear,  and  she  asked  no  ques- 
tions, but  in  their  slowly  growing  friendship  there  came 
to  her  the  certain  knowledge  that  it  was  so. 

He  greatly  liked  Mary. 

Since  the  occasion  of  his  first  call,  her  sister's  name  had 
not  been  mentioned.  This  concession  the  strong-willed 
woman  had  seen  to  be  necessary  to  the  continuance  of  any 
sort  of  ultimate  intercourse  between  them.  To  her  the 
necessity  seemed  absurd,  almost  an  affectation;  but,  recog- 
nizing it,  she  accepted  it,  for  to  her  the  game  was  well 
worth  the  candle. 

And  he,  relieved  from  his  fear  of  hearing  Viola  spoken 
of,  had  gradually  come  to  value  the  companionship  of  the 
lonely  woman.  She  loved  Sharrow,  knew  everyone,  man, 
woman  and  child,  on  the  great  estate,  and  was  very  helpful 
to  him  in  his  plans  for  the  future.  He  could  not,  did  not 
attempt  to  tell  her  in  what  way  he  regarded  his  vast 
heritage ;  he  was  prevented  by  a  kind  of  shyness  from  even 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  319 

attempting  to  render  articulate  his  deep  feeling  of  respon- 
sibility, but  he  felt  that  she  understood  to  a  greater  extent 
than  anyone  else.  She  was  told  of  his  continual  disap- 
pointments, of  how  the  old  man  would,  at  a  stroke  of  his 
pencil,  undo  the  work  of  hours.  Her  never  interrupted 
friendship  with  the  different  tenants  and  villagers,  was 
invaluable  to  him.  Very  often  he  went  to  her  to  talk 
over  his  work. 

Together  they  made  plans  for  the  new  cottages  Lord  Shar- 
row  had  given  him  permission  to  build  in  place  of  those 
that  had  been  torn  down  owing  to  sanitary  deficiencies; 
together  they  decided  which  of  two  farmers  should  be 
given  the  lease  of  a  farm  newly  fallen  vacant  through  a 
death.  Her  judgment,  when  unheated,  was  shrewd  and  just, 
and  her  personal  knowledge  of  the  people  whose  lives  were 
so  largely  in  his  hands  was  of  the  greatest  help  to  him. 

He  asked  her  once  why  she  had  never  married,  and  she 
told  him,  without  embarrassment,  her  real  reason. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said,  looking  up  from  the  map  over 
which  she  was  poring,  "it  is  very  great  vanity,  but — I 
have  never  met  a  man  I  could  love." 

He  was  not  greatly  surprised.  There  was  in  her  a  cer- 
tain quality  of  fineness  that  set  her  apart  from  other  wo- 
men in  his  eyes;  she  was  obviously  ^uite  sufficient  unto 
herself,  although,  so  far  as  he  knew,  really  full  of  the 
vanity  she  declared  as  her  excuse  for  her  celibacy.  Her 
life,  with  its  daily  round  of  the  small  duties  and  small  in- 
terests she  loved,  seemed  full  enough  for  her,  and  the  beau- 
tiful quiet  of  her  old  house  at  the  edge  of  the  village 
seemed  a  fitting  atmosphere  for  her. 

One  day  Dr.  Turner  mentioned  Mary  to  him  in  a  way 
which  showed  that  everyone  did  not  agree  with  him  in 
his  unquestioning  acceptance  of  her  old-maid-hood. 

The  two  men  were  coming  downstairs  from  the  sick-room, 
as  Miss  Wymondham  went  up  to  it,  and,  as  he  reached  the 


320  SHARROW 

landing,  the  little  doctor  turned  and  watched  her  until 
she  had  disappeared. 

"It's  a  great  pity  she  won't  marry  the  Vicar,"  he  said, 
drawing  on  his  shabby  dogskin  gloves  which  fastened 
with  metal  clips  and  were  troublesome  in  damp  weather, 
owing  to  rust. 

"The  Vicar!    Does  Pendleton  want  to  marry  her?" 

"Of  course  he  does.  Always  has,  ever  since  he  or  any- 
one else  can  remember." 

Turner  struggled  into  his  brown  great-coat  and  took  up 
his  hat.  "But  she  won't;  never  will,  I  suppose.  It's  a 
pity.  That  woman,"  the  little  doctor  added,  "ought  to  be 
a  mother. " 

' '  So  ought  every  woman. ' ' 

"Not  a  bit  of  it!  That's  just  where  you're  wrong. 
Why,  if  two  of  'em  who  have  no  right  to  and  persist  in 
doing  it  as  regular  as  clockwork  every  year  weren't  wait- 
ing for  me,  I  could  prove  the  fallacy  of  that  theory  to  you, 
Mr.  Sharrow!  Every  woman,  indeed!  Take  that  narrow- 
hipped,  flat-chested  little  foreign  woman  I  saw  a  minute 
ago.  They  say  she  plays  the  piano  like  a  witch,  and  I 
Jare  say  she  does.  But  a  mother  ?  Good  Lord !  She  is  a 
cerebral,  that  woman ;  all  brain,  no  bowels.  No  motherhood 
in  her.  Probably  lined  with  piano  keys!  I  should  be," 
he  added,  as  he  opened  the  door,  and  Sandy  listened 
courteously,  "sorry  for  the  man  who  made  her  the  mother 
of  his  children.  Good  morning,  Mr.  Sharrow,  good 
morning. ' ' 

Sandy  had  a  queer  little  smile  on  his  lips.  Could  it  be 
possible  that  Turner  was  conveying  an  indirect  warning 
to  him?  Could  people  be  thinking  that  he  was  going  to 
marry  Miss  Suarez?  He  was  genuinely  amused  by  the 
idea,  for  he  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  seen  so  little  of  his 
guest  that  he  feared  she  would  think  him  rude,  and  was 
even  now  seeking  Syd  that  the  youth  might  convey  to  her 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  321 

an  expression  of  Sandy's  regret  for  the  stress  that  forbade 
his  never  frequent  association  with  her. 

He  opened  the  door  of  the  Chinese  Room,  a  room  which 
it  pleased  his  brother  to  use  as  a  sitting-room,  and  went  in. 

It  was  raining  hard,  and  a  dark  day.  The  fire  was  burnt 
low,  and  the  windows  were  faint  grey  patches  streaked 
with  silver. 

Sandy  thought  no  one  was  there,  and  was  about  to  go 
out,  when  he  saw  Miss  Suarez  sitting,  or  rather  lying,  on 
the  hearth-rug. 

Her  attitude  was  such  a  queer  one,  she  seemed  so  flat 
on  the  floor,  that  he  thought  at  first  that  she  must  be 
crying,  and  was  about  to  turn  again  to  the  door,  when 
without  moving  she  raised  her  eyes  to  his. 

He  started;  he  had  thought  her  face  was  hidden,  that 
the  back  of  her  head  was  turned  toward  him ;  and  now  he 
saw  her  eyes.  He  felt  as  though  he  had  waked  a  coiled- 
up  snake. 

"I  am  not  crying,"  she  said,  "I  am  thinking." 

"Do  you  often  think  in  that  position?" 

With  a  deliberate  movement  that  again  made  him  think 
of  a  snake,  she  uncoiled,  and  sat  upright. 

"Yes — why  not?  I  am  anemic,  and  when  my  head  is 
low  the  blood  gets  in,  and  my  brain  works  better." 

She  spoke  slowly,  carefully,  and  he  observed  that  dur- 
ing the  week  she  had  been  at  Sharrow  her  accent  had  im- 
proved almost  miraculously. 

While  he  stood,  looking  very  big  and  English,  beside  her 
dark  little  person,  she  went  on:  "Your  brother  has  just 
told  me  of  how  he  discovered  in  an  old  box  the  papers 
that — that  give  you  all  this." 

"Yes.  Strange,  wasn't  it?  My  great-uncle  gave  me  the 
box — it  was  a  medicine  chest — when  I  was  a  child.  For 
years  it  stood  in  my  room,  and  I  used  to  play  with  it. 
Then  I  gave  it  to  my  brother,  and  he  had  it  for  years. 


322  SHARROW 

If  he  hadn't  chanced  to  drop  it  that  day,  the  secret  place 
in  the  lid  would  never  have  been  discovered,  and  my 
cousin  would  have  had  everything." 

Her  eyes  glinted  in  the  firelight. 

"And  you?    Where  would  you  have  been?" 

He  did  not  answer  for  a  moment,  and  then  with  a  shrug 
said:  "God  knows.  Wandering  about,  I  dare  say."  He 
went  to  the  window,  and  stood  looking  out  into  the  pour- 
ing rain. 

Where  would  he  have  been  but  for  the  hazard  of  Syd's 
knocking  the  medicine  chest  off  its  shelf?  In  Paris  still, 
with  Lise  and  the  rest,  sinking  lower  and  lower,  hopeless, 
doomed. 

The  thought  attuned  his  spirits  to  their  old  misery  for  a 
moment;  he  was  a  very  healthy  man,  but  he  had  been  a 
drunkard  for  years,  and  his  nerves  were,  of  course,  affected. 

Down,  down  sunk  his  heart.  What  was  the  use?  What, 
now,  was  the  use  of  anything  ?  Sharrow  was  to  be  his,  and 
he  had  lost  the  glory  of  it. 

Maria  Paz's  voice  roused  him. 

"Your  brother  said  you  are  never  going  to  marry," 
she  said. 

"Did  he?" 

Sandy  turned,  annoyed  by  her  tactlessness,  but  when  he 
saw  her  face,  he  knew  that  she  had  spoken,  not  from  a  lack 
of  tact,  but  because,  knowing  that  he  would  think  her 
words  sprang  from  that  lack,  she  had  decided  that  his  so 
thinking  was  overbalanced  by  the  importance  of  her  object 
in  uttering  them. 

She  had  a  good  reason  for  being  indiscreet. 

"He  says  he  is  to  marry  and  carry  on  the  family." 

"My  brother  seems  to  confide  in  you,  Miss  Suarez." 
Sandy  looked  like  his  great-uncle  as  he  smiled  at  her,  de- 
liberately teasing  her  by  withholding  the  information  she 
wanted. 


S  H  A  R.R  0  W  323 

"He  does.  You  confide  in  Miss  Vindham,  and  your 
brother  in  me.  So  you  are  never  to  marry?" 

He  did  not  answer,  and  his  smile  grew  more  malicious. 
Presently,  without  having  granted  her  the  satisfaction  of  a 
statement  of  any  kind,  he  left  her.  Was  Turner  right 
after  all? 

Sandy  was  far  from  being  a  conceited  man,  but  he  knew 
quite  well  what  a  matrimonial  prize  he  must  appear  to  be. 
And  this  pathetic  creature,  could  she  have  the  vanity  to 
think  that  her  poor  charms  could  win  for  her  such  things 
as  those  that  apparently  lay  in  his  power  to  give  a 
woman  ? 

He  smiled  at  the  thought,  but  he  was  at  bottom  a  chival- 
rous man,  and  his  smile  was  kind  and  sad. 

The  girl  was  so  plain,  so  badly  dressed,  so  surly,  so  lack- 
ing in  all  the  things  of  which  sirens  are  made — could  she 
be  trying  to  set  her  poor  cap  at  him  ? 

He  paused  on  the  stair.  He  had  not  been  agreeable ;  he 
had  teased  her.  Should  he  go  back  and  try  to  be  pleasant 
to  her? 

He  did  not  go.  It  was  not  worth  while.  She  was 
friendless  in  England;  he  had  taken  her  and  her  dull  old 
father  into  his  house ;  he  was  trying,  with  old  Lady  Hain- 
ault's  help,  to  arrange  some  drawing-room  concerts  for  her; 
he  would  lend  her  father  money;  but  he  had  work  to  do 
and  could  not  spare  the  time  for  another  talk  with  her. 

As  he  closed  his  study  door,  he  said  again,  with  his  half- 
shrug:  "Poor  soul!" 


CHAPTER  LIII 

AT  the  end  of  a  fortnight  the  Suarez  were  still  at  Shar- 
row,  and  Sandy  was  amused  to  see  that  Turner  was  not 
the  only  person  who  considered  that  a  word  of  warning 
to  him  might  not  come  amiss. 

He  had  had  one  or  two  walks  with  Miss  Suarez,  and,  in 
the  way  she  had  first  interested  him,  she  continued  to  do 
so.  Her  peculiar  mind,  her  goblin-like  interpretation 
of  the  music  which  usually  at  all  hours  filled  the  Yellow 
Drawing  room,  and  a  certain  tenacity  of  purpose  that 
distinguished  her,  these  things  gave  her  a  real  value  in  his 
eyes. 

Her  extreme  adaptability,  too,  commanded  his  attention. 
One  evening  she  appeared  at  dinner  in  a  black  frock  which 
was  so  perfectly  what,  to  a  man's  undiscerning  eyes,  a 
woman's  should  be,  that  he  marvelled. 

' '  Isn  't  she  clever,  Sandy  ? ' '  Syd  asked  with  the  triumph 
his  protegee's  accomplishments  invariably  produced  in  him. 
"She's  made  it  all  herself  out  of  that  awful  high  thing 
with  the  orange  bows." 

"But  how,  Syd?  It  looks  absolutely  new — even  the 
shape  of  the  skirt,  as  far  as  I  can  see." 

Syd  laughed  delightedly.  "That's  just  it — she  has 
copied  Mary's — the  skirt  is  like  Mary's  sapphire  velvet, 
and  the  body  like  Mary's  white  one,  with  the  sleeves  of 
that  black  one  Lady  Hainault  wore  at  the  Bazaar. ' ' 

Lady  Hainault,  an  old  lady  always  ready  to  interest  her- 
self in  new  people,  had  been  very  kind  about  Miss  Suarez. 

324 


SHAREOW  325 

She  had  arranged  for  her  a  series  of  concerts  in  town, 
at  the  houses  of  people  she  had  coaxed  or  bullied  into  com- 
pliance with  her  wishes. 

' '  She  makes  my  blood  run  cold  with  her  music, ' '  the  old 
lady  told  Syd,  "and  Isabel  says  she  knows  she  rides  about 
on  a  broomstick  at  night.  Very  interesting  indeed." 

Syd  laughed,  flushing.  "It  is  good  of  you,  Lady  Hain- 
ault, ' '  he  said.  ' '  You  don 't  know  how  plucky  she  is. ' ' 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  the  old  lady  returned,  thought- 
fully, "if  I  had  had  a  face  like  that  in  my  young  days,  I 
should  have  drowned  myself,  so  I  think  I  do  respect  her 
pluck.  Isabel  says " 

Isabel  was  the  Freckled  Barrington  Twin. 

One  day  when  Sandy  was  returning  from  a  long  tramp, 
he  met  Miss  Suarez  and  joined  her. 

It  was  a  very  cold  day  early  in  March;  the  black  ash 
buds  were  the  only  sign  of  spring,  and  an  unrelenting  east 
wind  swept  over  the  land. 

"I  fear  you  must  feel  the  cold  very  much,"  he  began, 
looking  down  at  her.  Her  nose  was  nipped  and  red,  her 
lips  nearly  blue. 

The  little  creature  smiled,  showing  her  one  beauty,  her 
white  teeth  which  glinted  like  a  dog's. 

"I  like  cold  weather,"  she  said. 

"Ah?"  He  repressed  a  smile  at  the  obvious  untruth; 
and  she  went  on. 

"Only  in  the  morning  do  I — freeze.  While  it  is  yet 
dark,  and  the  wind  is  black,  and  the  road  white " 

"While  it  is  yet  dark?" 

"Yes.  When  I'm  going  to  Mass  "  she  answered  simply, 
drawing  her  worn  boa  closer  around  her  throat. 

"Surely  you  don't  go  to  Mass  early  in  the  mornings, 
Miss  Suarez?" 

"Que  si!  In  Spain  we  all  go  to  Mass.  It  is  a  country 
of  Christians." 


326  SHARKOW 

They  walked  on  in  silence  for  a  moment,  Sandy's  foot- 
steps ringing  out  on  the  frozen  earth. 

"Where  do  you  go?"  he  asked  presently. 

"To  Vite  Shirley." 

"But  White  Shirley  is  five  miles  away!"  He  was  hor- 
rified at  the  idea  of  his  guest  walking  there  in  the  cold 
dawn.  "My  brother  has  been  very  careless.  He  should 
have  known,  and  sent  you  in  a  carriage.  I  do  beg  your 
pardon,  Miss  Suarez — it  shall  not  happen  again." 

But  she  waved  his  concern  away  with  a  quick  gesture  of 
her  shabbily  gloved  little  hand. 

"Mais  non — your  brother  does  know;  and  I  wish  no 
carriage.    It  is  well  to  walk  to  Mass." 

It  was  another  queer  twist  in  her  mentality,  and  it  in- 
creased his  interest  in  her.  That  she  should  go  to  Mass 
every  day  seemed  strange  to  him,  but  that  she  should  vehe- 
mently and  definitely  refuse  the  carriage  he  urged  her  to 
have  puzzled  him  even  more.  She  was  so  different  from  his 
preconceived  ideas  of  a  Spanish  woman ;  she  was  so  slight, 
so  lizard-like  in  her  darting  movements,  so  practical,  and 
yet  she  was,  apparently,  as  bigoted  a  Catholic  as  the  lan- 
guorous ladies  of  his  imagination. 

The  spring  was  a  very  late,  and  a  bitter  cold  one,  and 
an  English  spring,  even  of  the  mildest  kind,  must  be 
a  trial  to  the  girl  who  had  never  before  been  in  a  northern 
country.  Yet  she  not  only  went  to  Mass  at  dawn,  in  an 
unheated  country  church,  but  she  persisted  in  going  on 
foot. 

While  he  was  musing  on  these  things,  she  began  to  speak 
of  the  concerts  she  was  to  give  in  London  beginning  the 
next  week.  She  expressed  her  gratitude  to  him  and  to 
Lady  Hainault,  in  her  pretty  English,  and  then  she  added 
suddenly : 

"But  that  is  not  the  best  of  all.  The  best,  that  was 
in  inviting  my  old  poor  father  here.  He  was  unhappy — 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  327 

very  unhappy — he  was  hurted.  And  you  asked  us  here, 
and  he  is  happy  in  his  soul.  For  this  I  thank  you." 

Stopping  suddenly,  she  held  out  her  hand  to  him.  He 
took  it  because  he  could  do  nothing  else.  They  had  reached 
the  end  of  the  village  nearest  the  great  park  gates,  and 
stood  within  a  stone's  throw  of  Mary  Wymondham 's  house. 

"I  thank  you,"  Maria  Paz  repeated,  and  he  saw  that  her 
odd  black  eyes,  so  unlustrous,  so  inexpressive,  were  wet 
with  tears,  and  that  her  face,  though  set,  was  quivering. 

"You  have  nothing  to  thank  me  for,"  he  said  kindly, 
for  he  knew  that  she  was  sincere.  "I  was  delighted  to 
invite  friends  of  my  brother's " 

As  he  spoke,  the  green  garden  gate  of  the  Corner  House 
opened,  and  Mary  Wymondham,  dressed  for  walking, 
came  out. 

Sandy  started  as  guiltily  as  does  every  man  caught  in  a 
ridiculous  position. 

"You — you  really  mustn't,"  he  stammered  to  Maria 
Paz.  ' '  I — it  was  nothing  at  all ' ' 

Wheeling  around,  she  saw  Miss  Wymondham,  and  her 
expression  changed  with  lightning  rapidity  to  one  of 
knowing  sympathy. 

"Ah,"  she  cried,  "here  is  Miss  Vindham!" 

And  before  Mary  had  reached  them,  she  had  darted  up 
the  slope  and  into  a  lane  that  led  by  a  roundabout  way 
to  the  South  Lodge. 

"Ho,  ho,"  cried  Mary,  as  Sandy  took  off  his  hat,  "and 
why  does  she  run  away?  Mine  eyes  have  seen " 

"She  was  thanking  me  for — for  inviting  them  here," 
Sandy  explained,  with  the  lameness  of  the  thoroughly  in- 
nocent. 

"Indeed!" 

He  laughed  ruefully.  "Yes,  she  was,  Mary.  I  know  it 
was  an  odd  place  to  choose  to  do  it  in,  but  that's  not  my 
fault,  so  you  needn't  sniff." 


328  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

"I  am  not  sniffing.  I  am  sneering.  Oh,  Sandy,  you  poor 
simpleton,  can  it  be  true  what  they're  all  saying?" 

"What  are  they  all  saying?" 

He  turned  and  went  back  with  her,  turning  off  presently 
into  a  lane,  leading  to  Linter's  Farm. 

"Well — what  is  it  they  are  all  saying?" 

Mary  was  suddenly  grave.  "That  you  are  going  to 
marry  Miss  Suarez." 

Sandy  stood  still.  "Who  is  saying  such  an  idiotic  thing 
as  that,  Mary?" 

"Well — Sally  Dingle  asked  me  about  it,  and  the  Vicar 
hinted  that  he  had  heard  of  it — I  don't  know,  Sandy,  just 
who  has  said  it — but  it  is  in  the  air.  I  do  hope,"  she  added, 
looking  frankly  at  him,  "that  it  isn't  true." 

"Of  course  it  isn't  true,"  he  returned  angrily.  "You 
ought  to  know  me  better.  Why  in  God's  name  should  I 
marry  that  poor  little  thing?" 

She  did  not  speak  for  a  moment,  and  then  he  went  on  in 
a  changed  voice :  ' '  Mary — I  want  to  tell  you  something.  I 
have  told  no  one  else,  but  you  and  I  are  friends.  I  am 
never  going  to  marry." 

"Why,  Sandy?" 

He  hesitated.  "Because — because — I  couldn't.  I  can't 
explain,  but  the  resolution — it's  more  than  a  resolution, 
it's  just  a  plain  fact — is  the  result  of  my  whole  life.  I 
shall  never  marry.  Syd  must  carry  on  the  name.  He 
knows. ' ' 

' '  It  seems  a  pity,  Sandy, ' '  she  said,  thoughtfully,  as  they 
reached  the  top  of  the  hill  and  stood  looking  back  at  the 
mist-dimmed  view.  "I  am  sorry." 

And  he  knew  that  she  was  sorry,  not  because  of  his  reso- 
lution but  for  the  causes  that  had  led  up  to  it. 

After  a  few  minutes,  when  they  had  been  discussing 
other  things,  she  returned  to  the  subject. 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  329 

"I  hope  you  have  told — what  you  have  told  me,  to  Miss 
Suarez?" 

"No,  I  have  not  told  her,  but " 

"You  ought  to  then." 

Something  in  her  voice  drew  his  attention  from  what 
he  had  been  going  to  add — that  Syd  had  already  told 
Maria  Paz  of  the  family  arrangement. 

He  saw  by  Mary's  voice  what  was  in  her  thoughts  and 
as  he  glanced  at  her  he  said:  "Don't  be  unjust,  Mary,"  a 
glint  in  his  eyes  that  had  always  meant  teasing. 

"Unjust?" 

"Yes.  You  know  that  in  the  depths  of  your  heart  you 
suspect  poor  Miss  Suarez  of — things!" 

She  flushed  like  a  rose;  the  sudden  glow  of  color  was 
perhaps  her  one  real  beauty. 

"What  do  you  mean,  Sandy?" 

"Ha,  ha!" 

But  she  persisted,  almost  angrily,  and  finally  he  had  to 
explain.  ' '  You  think  black  thoughts  of  the  poor  girl.  You 
think  she  is  plotting  against  my  freedom." 

Mary  disliked  the  turn  the  conversation  had  taken,  but 
she  was  too  honest  to  deny  what  he  said. 

' '  "Well,  yes,  I  do.  I  think  that  whatever  you  have  deter- 
mined upon,  she  is  trying  to  marry  you." 

"Exactly.  And  you  are  wrong."  He  forgot,  in  the 
vividness  of  his  memory  of  Maria  Paz's  gratitude  for  his 
kindness  to  her  father  and  her,  his  own  slight  suspicions 
of  a  few  days  before. 

"Am  I?"  Miss  Wymondham  tossed  her  head,  settling  it 
again  with  a  regal  air  in  her  black  furs. 

"You  are."  Sandy  watched  her,  unmoved,  except  to  a 
mild  and  slightly  malicious  amusement.  ' '  She  has  no  more 
idea  of  marrying  me  than — than  you  have." 

For  a  moment  she  did  not  answer  him,  while  she  spoke 


330  SHARROW 

to  old  Bustard's  successor,  who  was  passing  with  his  flock 
of  sheep.  • 

While  they  stood  waiting  for  the  little,  dingy,  dainty- 
footed  beasts  to  scurry  by  them,  Sandy  watched  her.  It 
always  had  amused  him  to  see  Mary  cross;  she  was  so 
very  cocksure,  as  a  rule,  and  so  angry  when  proved  to  be 
in  the  wrong. 

When  at  length  the  last  nervous  ewe  had  got  out  of 
their  terrifying  neighborhood,  she  turned,  a  trace  of  red 
still  in  her  cheeks. 

"Men  are,  of  course,  always  right  in  such  matters,"  she 
said  scathingly.  "That's  why  no  man  has  ever  been  mar- 
ried by  surprise!" 

"But,  my  dear  girl,  I  am  not  a  simpleton.  I  know 
quite  well  that  I  should  be  considered  a  great  parti.  I 
fully  expect  to  be  run  after  by  mammas,  and  even  by 
maidens,  during  the  next  year  or  two,  until  my  immutable 
celibacy  has  become  an  understood  fact.  I  know  as  well  as 
you  do  that  the  woman  who  married  me  would  not  be 
marrying  Sandy  Sharrow;  she'd  be  marrying  great  wealth, 
an  ancient  title,  and  one  of  the  most  beautiful  houses  in 
England.  All  that  I  grant  you.  What  I  say  is,  however, 
that  this  poor  little  bony  Spaniard  is  not  setting  her  cap 
for  me.  Of  that  I  am  sure  she  is  commendably  guiltless. ' ' 

Mary  gave  a  little  sound  which  in  a  man  might  have 
been  classified  as  a  snort. 

"All  right.     I'm  glad  you  think  so." 

"No,  you're  not.    You  despise  me  for  thinking  so!" 

They  had  reached  the  door  of  the  farmhouse,  and  as 
she  raised  her  stick  to  knock,  she  turned. 

"You  are  a  pig,"  she  said,  laughing,  "and  I  am  right, 
as  I  always  am." 


CHAPTER  LIY 

EARLY  one  evening  four  or  five  days  after  Sandy 's  walk 
with  Mary  to  Linter's  Farm,  he  had  come  in  after  a  busy 
afternoon  at  Coulter's  End,  where  the  new  cottages  were 
in  process  of  completion,  and  was  sitting  with  a  pipe  over 
the  fire  in  his  dressing-room. 

The  Suarez  had  gone  to  London  the  day  before — glanc- 
ing at  the  clock,  Sandy  knew  that  at  that  very  moment, 
Maria  Paz  was  probably  finishing  her  concert  in  Lady 
Hainault  's  drawing-room. 

They  had  gone,  the  Spaniards,  full  of  gratitude,  the  old 
man  again  holding  up  his  head,  twenty  pounds  of  Sandy's 
money  in  his  pocket,  to  wrest  from  London  society  the  suc- 
cess professional  London  had  denied  to  them. 

' '  By  Jove !  I  hope  they  '11  succeed,  poor  souls ! ' '  Sandy 
thought,  comfortably  stretching  his  tired  feet  in  his  old 
glippers. 

In  spite  of  the  interest  and  curiosity  he  had  felt  in 
Maria  Paz,  he  was  glad  they  had  gone,  and  he  had  no  wish 
ever  to  see  them  again.  He  was  glad  to  have  been  able  to 
help  them,  and  gladder  still  that  Syd  had  been  so  kind  to 
them ;  but  the  eternal  sound  of  the  piano  had  begun  to  bore 
him,  and  even  Syd's  generous  enthusiasm  was  a  little 
wearying. 

Syd  was,  as  Sandy  sat  by  the  fire,  swelling  the  applause 
at  Lady  Hainault 's.  The  Freckled  Twin  was  to  be  there, 
and  Sandy,  when  the  whole  party  had  a  few  nights  before 
dined  with  her  grandmother,  had  tried  his  hand  at  a  little 
discreet  match-making. 

331 


332  SHARROW 

"You  like  him?"  he  asked,  a  little  shyness  in  his  voice 
that  made  the  old  lady  wonder  where  he  had  been  all 
these  years  and  why  his  face  sometimes  wore  such  a  strange 
look,  when  his  voice  seemed  so  charmingly  young. 

"Like  him?    I  love  the  boy,"  she  returned  promptly. 

"Well — I  wish  your  delightful  granddaughter  would." 

"Which  delightful  granddaughter?    I  have  fourteen." 

Then  Sandy  had  told  her,  very  quietly,  that  Syd  was  his 
heir,  and  that  it  was  his  wish  that  the  boy  should  marry 
young. 

' '  Bell  is  only  seventeen, ' '  the  old  lady  returned,  hesitat- 
ingly, "and  is  a  perfect  baby  as  yet,  but  I  should,  of 
course,  be  delighted,  if  they  should  really  like  each  other 
later." 

Then  Sandy  unfolded  his  plan,  which  had  at  least  the 
virtue  of  great  simplicity.  The  two  young  things  should  be 
"thrown  together." 

"Mary  Wymondham  will  invite  Miss  Barrington  to  visit 
her,"  he  said,  "and  Syd  will  see  her  every  day.  She  will 
then  learn  to  love  the  old  place — I  should  like  her  to  do 
that — and  they  will  get  to  know  each  other  well.  That, ' '  he 
added,  feeling  very  old  indeed,  but  looking  with  his  earnest 
gaze  very  young  to  the  ancient  lady  who  listened  so  kindly 
to  him,  "seems  to  me  to  be  very  important." 

Then  Lady  Hainault  had  done  a  dreadful  thing.  She 
asked  him  outright  why  he  himself  didn't  marry,  and 
added  that,  as  he  seemed  to  like  her  family,  she  could  offer 
him  a  fine  assortment  of  healthy  young  Hainaults,  Bar- 
ringtons,  and  Cresboroughs  to  choose  from. 

' '  No,  I  shall  not  marry, ' '  he  said  after  a  pause. 

"But  surely  you  were  engaged,  weren't  you,  when  you 
were  a  youngster?  I  was  in  Egypt  at  the  time,  but  Char- 
lotte Grantly  or  some  one  wrote  me " 

"I  was  engaged,  yes.  But  I  shall  never  marry.  Now 
let's  settle  about  this  pretty  Isabel.  May  she  come  to  visit 


SHARROW  333 

Mary  Wymondham  ?  Look  at  them,  they  seem  to  like  each 
other,  don't  they?" 

Syd  and  the  Freckled  Twin  were  giggling  over  the  last 
number  of  Punch,  their  heads  close  together.  And  the  old 
lady  promised  that  when  Mary  sent  the  invitation  it  should 
be  accepted. 

All  these  things  went  through  Sandy 's  mind  that  evening 
as  he  warmed  his  feet  by  the  fire.  The  next  Monday  would 
bring  the  Freckled  Twin  to  the  Corner  House,  the  first, 
Sandy  hoped,  of  many  visits.  And  in  three  years'  time,  if 
all  went  well,  there  would  be  a  wedding  in  Eccleston 
Square,  and  then  Syd  and  his  wife  would  come  home  to 
Sharrow  to  live. 

After  all,  Sandy  thought,  life  held  much  that  was  good, 
even  for  him. 

His  troubles  seemed  nearly  over,  in  so  far  as  they  ever 
could  be  over,  while  memory  lasted.  His  struggle  with 
his  craving  for  spirits  was  nearly  won,  the  bad  times  grow- 
ing less  and  less  frequent,  his  victories  easier  and  easier. 
And  little  by  little  his  love  for  Sharrow  was  regaining  its 
place  in  his  heart.  Every  brick  that  was  added  to  the 
humble  cottages  at  Coulter's  End,  for  instance,  gave  him 
a  keen  pleasure,  and  only  the  day  before,  when  Farmer 
Murdoch  had  finally  promised  to  sell  the  meadows  the  old 
lord  so  longed  for,  in  his  joy  Sandy  thought  for  one  blind- 
ing second  that  the  Feeling  was  coming  back  to  him.  It 
had  not  come,  the  glory  of  sensation,  but  it  had  not  been  so 
near  for  years,  and  surely  that  was  a  hopeful  sign. 

Altogether  he  had  not  been  so  close  to  happiness  for 
many  years  as  he  was  as  the  clock  struck  half -past  six,  and 
someone  knocked  at  the  door. 

"Come  in." 

The  door  opened,  and,  to  his  surprise,  Mrs.  Puddifant 
entered. 

She  had  been  the  housekeeper  at  Sharrow  since  long 


334  SHARROW 

before  he  could  remember,  and  was  now  so  old  that  she  pos- 
sessed a  deputy,  who  took  from  her  shoulders  as  much  of 
her  administrative  burden  as  she  could  be  prevailed  upon 
to  relinquish,  even  to  her  niece. 

' '  Mrs.  Pud ! ' '  Sandy  rose,  courteously,  but  the  old  nick- 
name came  unconsciously  to  his  lips. 

"Yes,  sir,  it's  me." 

Her  large  white  hands  folded  on  her  stomach,  she 
stood  respectfully  before  him,  the  gold  cross  that  hung 
around  her  neck  rising  and  falling  more  quickly  than 
usual. 

"I  thought,  sir,  you  wouldn't  think  I  was  takin'  a  lib- 
erty, after  all  these  years " 

"Sit  down,  Mrs.  Puddifant,  do  sit  down.  Of  course, 
there  can  be  no  question  of  a  liberty — has  anything  hap- 
pened?" 

"No.  Mr.  S — no,  sir.  I  prefer  to  stand,  if  you  don't 
mind.  It's  this.  I  thought  you  ought  to  know,  sir,  that 
'is  lordship  'as  moved  to  the  Blue  Room. ' ' 

"To  the  Blue  Room?"  Sandy  stared,  the  pipe  in  his 
hand. 

"Yes,  sir — this  afternoon.    Not  above  an  hour  ago." 

Her  manner  was  extremely  portentous,  but  to  Sandy  her 
meaning  was  a  mystery. 

"My  great-uncle  has  changed  his  bedroom,  is  that  it?" 
he  asked,  after  a  moment's  hesitation. 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Well,  but — why  shouldn't  he?  I  don't  understand.  If 
he  has  taken  a  fancy  to  another  room — sick  people  often 
do " 

Mrs.  Puddif ant's  respectful  smile  was  not  altogether  de- 
void of  superiority. 

"Oh,  it  isn't  that,  sir." 

Her  fat  chins  were  flushed,  her  cap  a  trifle  awry — signs 
of  deep  agitation,  he  knew. 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  335 

"Well,  suppose  you  explain,  then,"  he  said,  good-hu- 
moredly. 

Mrs.  Puddifant  cleared  her  throat,  and  arranged  her 
thumbs  with  great  care. 

"  'Is  lordship  is  going  to  die,  sir." 

"Why  do  you  say  that,  Mrs.  Puddifant?" 

She  pursed  her  lips,  solemnly. 

"Because  I  know  it,  sir.  And  'e  knows  it.  That's  why 
'e  'as  moved  back  into  the  Blue  Room.  It's  the  room  in 
which  you  are  all  born,  sir,  and  in  which  you  all  die." 

Sandy  was  silent  for  a  moment.  "I  see.  And — he  has 
had  himself  moved  there  to-day." 

"An  hour  ago,  sir.  'E  never  liked  the  Blue  Room;  'e 
always  said  there  wasn't  room  for  all  the  ghosts  there — 
but  'e  wouldn't  die  anywhere  else,  sir — none  of  the  Family 
would." 

"I  see." 

Mrs.  Puddifant  rearranged  her  thumbs.  "And,  oh,  Mr. 
Sandy,"  she  burst  out  suddenly,  forgetting  his  age  and  his 
rapidly  approaching  dignities,  '"e  sent  for  me,  to  tell  me 
about  'is  brother — and  I  can 't  tell  you  'ow  'e  looks !  Quite 
different  somehow,  in  that  old  bed  with  the  blue  curtains. 
'E  was  born  in  it,  and  'is  father,  and  'Eaven  knows  how 
many  more  of  the  Family.  And  my  own  grandmother  saw 
the  late  lord  lying  there  dead,  a  hundred  and  twenty  years 
ago,  with  lilies  on  his  breast,  sir,  and  'is  'air  powdered!" 

The  Feeling,  in  the  silence  that  followed  the  old  woman 's 
little  outburst,  was  very  close  to  Sandy.  He  held  his 
breath,  and  waited.  It  passed,  but  it  had  been  so  near,  so 
near. 

Presently  Mrs.  Puddifant,  perhaps  with  an  artistic  in- 
stinct against  anti-climax,  curtsied  ponderously,  and  went 
out,  leaving  him  alone. 

It  was  very  pathetic,  the  dying  old  peer  having  his  feeble 
body  carried  to  the  bed  in  which  he,  like  his  forebears,  must 


336  SHARROW 

render  up  his  last  breath;  there  was  in  it  a  touch  of  the 
romance  that  Sandy,  as  a  child,  had  felt  to  be  in  his  ter- 
rible old  relative. 

He  had  told  no  one,  not  even  Sandy,  of  his  last  move. 
His  servants  had  been  ordered  to  bear  him  thither,  and 
there  he  now  lay,  awaiting  death. 

After  a  while  Sandy  went  and  knocked  gently  on  the 
door  of  the  Blue  Room,  and  asked  the  nurse  whether  he 
might  see  his  great-uncle. 

She  "went  away,  and  presently  returned.  ' '  No, ' '  she  said, 
her  pleasant  face  appearing  in  the  light  of  the  half-opened 
door,  "he  prefers  to  be  quite  alone  to-night." 

So  Sandy  went  back  to  his  own  fireside.  Quite  alone! 
All  his  life  Lord  Sharrow  had  been  in  reality  quite  alone. 

"If  I  were  able  to  forgive  him,"  the  younger  man 
thought,  sadly,  "he  would  have  me  now,  but  I  can't,  and 
he  knows  that  I  can't." 


CHAPTER  LV 

THE  Freckled  Twin  came,  and  she  and  Syd  walked  and 
rode  and  drove  together,  and  Mary  and  Sandy  watched 
with  a  solicitude  that  was  rather  more  maternal  on  his  side 
than  it  was  on  hers. 

The  girl's  skirts  had  been  let  down,  a  fact  which  greatly 
embittered  her  life,  and  her  bright  brown  mane  was  rolled 
into  an  uncertain  ball  on  the  back  of  her  head. 

"Mother  says  I  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  it,"  she  told 
Mary,  "but  it  is  so  curly,  and  such  a  nuisance." 

She  was  a  charming  young  thing,  her  freckles,  like 
patines  of  leaf  gold,  enhancing  the  beauty  of  her  white 
skin,  and  in  her  rather  gauche  frankness  and  unromantic 
fearlessness  she  delighted  Sandy's  heart. 

"I  adore  Sharrow,"  she  said  once,  when  Mary  had 
brought  her  to  dine  at  the  house.  ' '  I  'd  rather  own  it  than 
any  house  in  England." 

And  Sandy,  after  an  amused  glance  at  Mary,  was 
pleased  to  see  Syd  staring  at  his  plate  with  a  self-conscious 
flush  on  his  face. 

Syd  and  the  girl  were  the  best  of  friends,  and  Sandy 
often  heard  his  brother's  rather  throaty  tenor  voice  in  the 
Yellow  Drawing-room,  singing  exercises  to  the  vigorous 
if  not  faultless  accompaniment  of  the  Freckled  Twin.  It 
was  not  beautiful  music  that  they  made,  but  Sandy  greatly 
preferred  it  to  the  brilliant  performances  of  Maria  Paz. 

April  passed;  the  shadows  under  the  trees  in  the  park 
were  more  decided,  as  the  leaves  thickened;  the  sky  took 

337 


338  SHARROW 

on  a  deeper  blue ;  cuckoos  called  to  each  other  in  the  woods, 
and  violets  and  primroses  spangled  the  meadows. 

Spring  had  come,  and  still  Lord  Sharrow  lingered  in 
the  Blue  Room,  awaiting  the  summons  which  seemed  un- 
willing to  come  to  him. 

The  old  man  had  never  mentioned  his  change  of  room 
to  Sandy.  As  he  grew  weaker  he  seemed  to  grow  more 
grim,  more  silent.  Sandy  knew  that  he  loathed  the  weak- 
ness that  chained  him  to  his  bed,  that  he  cursed  his  great 
age,  that  he  longed  to  have  it  all  over.  But  neither  of  the 
two  men  ever  mentioned  death,  until,  one  morning  very 
early,  when  April  had  just  left  the  world,  and  May  was 
only  three  hours  old,  Nurse  Blake  knocked  on  Sandy 's  door, 
and  waked  him. 

"He  is  going  very  fast,"  she  said,  looking  very  tall  and 
young  in  her  gray  dressing-gown,  a  long  plait  of  dark  hair 
hanging  over  each  shoulder,  ' '  and  he  has  asked  for  you. ' ' 

Daylight  came  in  at  the  windows  of  the  Blue  Room  as 
Sandy  went  quietly  in  and  sat  down  by  the  bed.  Lord 
Sharrow,  who  had  the  curtains  all  drawn  back,  lay  quite 
quiet,  his  eyes  half  shut.  He  looked  very  small  in  the  big 
bed.  His  wizened  face,  but  for  the  eyes,  was  like  a  crum- 
pled bit  of  the  linen,  and  the  sheet  and  blanket  lay  almost 
flat  over  his  wasted  body. 

To  Sandy  it  seemed  that  his  body  was  already  dead,  only 
the  eyes  still  lived. 

"Sandy!"  The  dying  man's  voice  was  crisp,  like  an 
unexpected  crackle  of  stiff  paper. 

"Yes,  Great-uncle." 

"Love  the  old  place,  won't  you?" 

"Yes,  Great-uncle." 

"About  Maggie  Penrose  and  me — what  we  did,"  went 
on  the  voice  which  was  still  Lord  Sharrow  of  Sharrow,  the 
oldest  peer  in  the  realm.  "I " 

Sandy  frowned.     He  wished  his  great-uncle  would  not 


S  H  A  R  K  0  W  339 

apologize  at  this  late  hour,  or  ask  the  forgiveness  that  he 
could  not  grant. 

"I  am  sorry,"  pursued  the  voice,  with  an  effort,  "that 
you  found  out." 

Sandy  checked  an  involuntary  smile.  It  was  so  thor- 
oughly characteristic  of  the  old  man  to  regret,  not  his  evil 
deed,  but  that  his  evil  deed  had  been  found  out! 

"Never  mind  that  now,  sir,"  he  said,  with  an  effort. 

"But  I  do  mind.  It  must  have  hurt  you — it  always 
hurts  to  lose  faith  in  a  woman — and  I  am  sorry,  Sandy. 
When  I  was  alive,  I  used  to  love  you."  He  paused,  moved 
his  head  a  little,  and  added,  with  something  that  tried 
to  be  a  laugh:  "I  have  been  dead  for  some  years,  you 
know." 

The  daylight  was  stronger  now,  and  the  pale  yellow 
sky  was  flecked  with  faintly  rose-colored  clouds.  The 
nurse  came  back,  dressed  now  in  her  neat  uniform,  a 
glass  containing  some  brown  liquid  in  her  hand. 

"Here  is  your  beef-juice,  Lord  Sharrow,"  she  said,  bend- 
ing over  the  pillow. 

She  gave  the  beef-juice  to  her  patient  too  quickly,  and 
he  choked  a  little  and  said  "damn!"  in  a  very  snappish 
voice ;  then  he  apologized  to  her,  and  she  went  away. 

' '  A  nice  young  woman,  Sandy ;  she  has  been  kind  to  me. 
I  should  like  her  to  have  fifty  pounds  as  a  little  present. ' ' 

"Very  well,  sir." 

' '  Tell  her  I  asked  you  to  give  it  to  her. ' ' 

"Very  well,  Great-uncle." 

Presently  the  invalid,  whose  eyes  had  been  shut,  opened 
them. 

"Mind!  I  won't  have  Pendleton  here — not  till  I'm  dead. 
I  mean;  when  I  am,  he  can  do  what  he  likes." 

"Very  well,  Great-uncle." 

An  hour  passed.  The  rose  had  faded  from  the  sky,  and  it 
was  now  a  beautiful  even  turquoise;  somewhere  not  far 


340  SHARROW 

away  a  gardener  was  whistling  at  his  work;  the  clock 
struck  seven. 

Sandy  opened  his  eyes  with  a  start.  He  had  been  asleep. 
Lord  Sharrow  had  moved  a  little,  and  lay  watching  his 
nephew. 

"Tired,  eh?"  he  said,  as  Sandy  hid  a  yawn.  "I  am 
sorry. ' '  Then  he  added,  suddenly :  ' '  Well — I  think  there  is 
no  more  to  say,  Sandy.  Love  the  old  place.  I — I  am  glad ' ' 
— he  held  out  his  little  dry,  cold  hand.  ' '  Good-by. ' ' 

The  two  men  shook  hands  gravely.  "Good-by,  Great- 
uncle." 

"I  suppose  you  can't  forgive  me,  Sandy?  Not  even 
now?"  Something  like  amusement  stirred  the  old  face  as 
he  spoke. 

"You — it  ruined  my  life,  Great-uncle " 

"I  know — ten  years  of  it — but  some  people — could  for- 
give even  that. ' ' 

Sandy  felt  that,  notwithstanding  the  guest  who  hovered 
at  the  door,  the  old  man  was  half  teasing  him. 

' '  I  know,  sir ;  but — not  we  Sharrows.  You  couldn  't ;  I— 
I  can't.  But " 

"Well — "  croaked  the  voice,  more  faintly.  "Go  on — 
hurry!" 

"I  was  going  to  say:  I  shall  never  forget  that  you  were 
good  to  me  when  I  was  a  boy." 

Sandy's  eyes  were  wet,  and  the  old  man  smiled  almost 
happily.  "I  see  a  tear,"  he  murmured,  "I  see  a  tear " 

His  fingers  fell  limply  from  Sandy's,  and  he  lay  back 
asleep. 

An  hour  later,  without  waking,  he  died. 


CHAPTER  LVI 

ONE  splendid  June  day,  Mary  Wymondham,  a  faded 
pink  sunbonnet  on  her  head,  a  pair  of  garden  shears  in  her 
hands,  was  working  among  her  roses. 

Her  garden,  though  not  large,  was  a  charming  one,  and 
its  clipped  yews,  rich  hedges,  and  century-old  lawns  made 
of  it  a  very  restful  place  indeed. 

At  her  back,  as  she  advanced  in  her  leisurely  work,  fill- 
ing a  battered  old  basket  with  fresh  roses  and  snipping 
faded  ones  from  the  trees,  was  the  house,  and  every  step 
brought  her  nearer  to  the  double  hedge  beyond  which  lay 
the  bowling  green.  Perfect  order  reigned  in  her  small 
domain ;  on  the  mellow-colored  brick  walls  the  newly 
formed  fruit  lay  sheltered  by  just  the  right  number  of 
leaves,  just  sufficiently  exposed  to  the  benevolent  sun;  the 
two  great  yews,  one  of  which  had  lived  at  least  its  last 
hundred  years  in  the  shape  of  a  vast  umbrella,  the  other 
of  which  was  a  giant  peacock,  never  looked  either  newly- 
shaven,  like  a  convict's  head,  or  dishevelled,  extremes  not 
unknown  to  the  yews  of  most  people. 

In  a  niche  between  two  bow-windows,  a  great  lavender 
bush  spread  itself  luxuriously  in  the  afternoon  sun;  and 
bees  hummed  in  a  big  mignonette  bed. 

At  the  far  end  of  the  garden,  stood  three  old-fashioned 
straw  beehives,  their  yellow  sides  glistening;  and  in  the 
very  center  of  the  velvet  lawn,  under  the  drawing-room 
windows,  was  an  ancient  sun-dial.  The  place  looked  the 
very  embodiment  of  peace  and  modest  comfort. 

341 


342  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

Mary  loved  it.  She  was  very  happy  that  afternoon,  after 
her  short  stay  in  London,  for  various  reasons,  connected 
with  the  village,  dull  reasons  that  would  sound  very  bor- 
ing, and  which  yet,  in  her  intimate  knowledge  of  the  peo- 
ple amongst  whom  she  lived,  were  to  her  of  great  im- 
portance. 

In  her  little  world  things  went  well.  Mr.  Pendleton,  the 
Vicar,  had  promised  not  to  propose  to  her  again,  a  prom- 
ise which  was  of  great  value  to  her  since  she  never  meant 
to  marry  him  and  hated  telling  him  so;  her  gardener's 
little  granddaughter  was  not  going  to  die  of  her  fall  out  of 
the  apple  tree,  after  all;  Coulter's  End  was  a  great  suc- 
cess; the  church  had  been  successfully  enlarged  without 
being  spoilt,  and  the  new  organ  was  quite  delightful,  even 
though  Sandy  had  got  it  from  London  and  not  from  the 
Norfolk  builders  she  had  recommended;  and  little  Isabel 
Harrington  had  told  her  two  days  before,  when  Mary 
bade  her  good-by  after  a  pleasant  visit  to  Eccleston  Square, 
that  she  would,  of  course,  come  again  to  Sharrow  in 
July. 

' '  I  like  it  frightfully, ' '  the  girl  had  added,  looking  really 
almost  grown  up  in  her  smart  afternoon  frock.  "I'd 
rather  be  there  than  anywhere." 

"Syd  is  a  delightful  young  man,  isn't  he?"  Mary  had 
asked,  feeling  rather  a  fiend,  but  longing  for  some  definite 
hope  to  take  home  to  Sandy. 

And  the  Freckled  Twin  had  blushed,  actually  blushed,  as 
she  replied  that  Syd  was  really  rather  a  dear. 

Mary  had  observed  in  Lady  Harrington,  to  whom  had 
fallen  the  rather  unfair  lot  of  mothering  nearly  one-third  of 
old  Lady  Hainault's  fourteen  granddaughters,  a  disposi- 
tion to  help  Time  in  his  dealings  with  her  fourth  girl. 
Isabel's  skirts  were  down  and  her  hair  up  rather  early  for 
a  member  of  the  old-fashioned  Harrington  tribe ;  and  Emily 
Harrington,  who  never  mentioned  Syd,  assured  her  guest 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  343 

that  Bell  really  was  wonderfully  mature  in  some  ways, 
though  she  looked  such  a  baby. 

And  now  Mary  was  back,  with  the  story  of  Bell's  blush 
already  shaped,  as  she  would  tell  it  to  Sandy,  in  her  mind, 
and  a  blackbird  was  singing  like  an  angel  in  a  cherry-tree, 
and  the  roses  were  delicately  baked  in  the  sun,  and  gave 
out  a  kind  of  triumphal  essence  of  their  own  scent  to  their 
mistress  as  she  lovingly  beheaded  them  to  decorate  her 
dwelling. 

Mary  Wymondham  detested  Browning,  or  she  would,  as 
she  worked  in  her  garden  that  afternoon,  undoubtedly  have 
quoted  "Pippa  Passes." 

The  grandfather  clock  just  within  her  house  door  struck 
half-past  three.  In  an  hour's  time  Sandy  would  come, 
and  she  would  tell  him  as  she  mentally  expressed  it,  in  her 
country  simplicity,  "all  about  London." 

She  had  heard  Paderewski  play,  and  seen  Mr.  Charles 
Wyndham's  new  comedy;  she  had  dined  at  the  "Carl- 
ton"  and  had  been  at  a  very  grand  dinner-party  at 
Lady  Hainault's.  And  then  there  was  the  story  of  the 
Blush. 

Having  reached  the  far  end  of  the  rose  garden,  she  came 
slowly  back,  her  white  muslin  skirts  dragging  softly  on 
the  smooth  grass,  and  sat  down  on  the  bench  under  the 
copper  beech  that  was  one  of  her  glories. 

It  was  delightfully  cool  here,  and  she  would  wait  till  her 
little  maid,  Sally,  should  pass  the  door  or  a  window,  and 
then  she  would  call  to  the  girl  to  bring  her  out  a  tray- 
full  of  vases ;  there  was  no  reason  on  earth  why  she  should 
not  arrange  her  own  roses  in  her  own  vases  in  her  own 
garden  if  she  wanted  to ! 

But  Sally  did  not  come,  and  Mary  sat  lazily  on. 

Two  very  corpulent  pigeons  flew  over  the  house  and 
settled  on  the  grass  near  her.  They  belonged  to  her  neigh- 
bor, Mr.  Attley,  the  draper,  whose  shop  was  so  luckily 


344  SHARROW 

farther  up  the  street.  Pigeons  are  pleasant  things  to  watch 
in  a  lazy  mood. 

Suddenly  in  the  utter  quiet  there  came  a  sound  which 
disturbed  the  dreaming  woman  even  before  she  realized 
what  it  was. 

With  a  quick  frown  she  raised  her  head  to  listen.  Some- 
thing seemed  troubling  her — what  was  it? 

A  horse. 

Down  the  cobbled  street  it  came,  the  disquieting  gallop- 
ing. It  had  reached  the ' '  Sheepshearers ' '  now — she  knew  by 
the  momentary  slackening  necessitated  by  the  gutter  that 
crossed  the  street  there — now  it  came  on  and  on — it  was 
going  past — no — she  rose  and  stood  waiting  for  she  knew 
not  what  disaster;  it  was  stopping;  had  stopped  at  her 
door. 

The  green  gate  opened,  and  Sandy,  not  dressed  for  rid- 
ing, but  carrying  a  hunting  crop,  came  in. 

He  came  straight  down  the  path,  then  crossed  over  the 
grass  toward  her. 

' '  Mary, ' '  he  said  hoarsely,  ' '  Syd  's  married. ' ' 

"Syd— 

' '  Yes.    To— to  that  Spaniard. ' ' 


CHAPTER  LVII 

THE  telegram  lay  on  the  grass,  and  one  of  the  pigeons, 
who,  after  a  temporary  retirement  to  their  own  garden,  had 
come  back,  pecked  at  it  tentatively. 

It  was  very  curt.  "Was  married  to  Maria  Paz  this 
morning. — Syd."  That  was  all. 

Over  and  over  again  it  rang  through  Mary's  brain  as 
she  sat  silent  beside  Sandy,  who  had  hidden  his  face  in  his 
hands.  "Was  married  to  Maria  Paz  this  morning. — Syd." 

It  seemed  hours  before  Sandy  finally  sat  up  and  pushed 
his  dishevelled  hair  off  his  forehead.  His  dry  eyes  were 
bloodshot,  his  face  very  white. 

Mary  leaned  forward  and  took  his  hand  in  hers.  "Oh, 
Sandy,"  she  said,  inarticulate  in  the  presence  of  what  she 
knew  was  his  despair. 

He  cleared  his  throat  twice,  and  then  spoke  with  an 
effort. 

"When — when  the  thing  came,"  he  began  slowly,  "I — as 
soon  as  I  believed  it,  I — cursed  her.  I — couldn't  see,  I 
was  so  angry.  And  then  his  deceit  occurred  to  me — and" 
— he  bit  his  bloodless  lips  fiercely — ' '  I  was  afraid  I  'd  curse 
him,  so — I  came  here." 

She  said  nothing,  her  hand  closing  more  firmly  on  his. 

"You  are  the  only  friend  I  have  in  the  world,  Mary," 
he  resumed,  again  clearing  his  throat,  "so  I  came  to  you." 

It  was  at  that  moment,  perhaps,  that  she  first  began 
to  realize  what  he  was  going  to  be  to  her.  Her  face  was 
beautifully  gentle  as  she  watched  him,  this  man  whose  only 
friend  she  was. 

345 


346  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

"I  am  glad  you  came,  Sandy " 

"Thanks.  It's — there's  no  use  being  angry;  it's  done. 
I — I  don 't  want  to  be  angry ' ' — his  voice  rose  .  suddenly, 
and  getting  up  he  strode  away  from  her  toward  the  um- 
brella-shaped yew.  ' '  I  don 't  want, ' '  he  went  on,  his  words 
gathering  volume,  "to  be  angry  with  little  Syd — God  help 
me!" 

She  was  frightened,  for  the  first  time,  perhaps,  in  her 
life,  for  his  lower  jaw  stuck  out  as  his  great-uncle's  had 
done,  his  teeth  showed,  and  his  eyes  had  a  wild  glare  in 
them.  His  last  words  sounded  like  a  blasphemy,  and  she 
knew  that  his  anger  toward  his  brother  had  forced  them 
from  the  lips  he  was  trying  to  keep  mute. 

"Mary" — he  turned,  beating  his  big  brown  hands  help- 
lessly together — ' '  don 't — don 't  let  me  be  angry  with  Syd. ' ' 

"You  will  not  be  angry  with  him,  Sandy,"  she  said  very 
quietly,  "because  it  would  be  unjust." 

The  dark  red  color  that  had  been  gaining  in  his  face 
ever  since  he  rose  faded  very  slowly.  "Unjust?"  he  re- 
peated, stupidly. 

"Yes.  Syd  is  a  child.  He  is  not  even  of  age.  She  has 
tricked  him  somehow." 

His  eyes  softened  with  a  natural  expression.  "You  are 
right.  He  is  not  of  age.  It  can  be  annulled — I'll  go  and 
see  Bolsover  at  once." 

But  she  would  not  let  him  go  to  London  that  day.  Syd 
had,  of  course,  taken  his  bride  away,  nothing  could  be  done 
without  him,  and  Sandy  was  as  weak  as  a  man  after  a  bad 
fainting-fit. 

He  sat  silently  in  her  quiet  drawing-room  while  she  made 
tea  and  gave  it  to  him;  he  even  drank  his  tea;  his  violent 
anger  was  over,  but  this  stupor  of  misery  was  nearly  as 
alarming.  She  had  never  before  seen  him  angry,  but  the 
Sharrow  temper  was  a  tradition  to  her;  she  had  heard 
many  tales  of  it,  and  the  mad  things  it  had  been  known 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  347 

to  cause  its  possessor  to  do,  so  she  felt  thankful,  as  she  sat 
there  by  the  stricken  man,  that  matters  had  been  no 
worse. 

And  presently,  as  the  long  summer  afternoon  changed 
to  evening,  Sandy  began  to  talk. 

He  told  of  his  lonely  little-boyhood,  of  the  old  house  in 
Bloomsbury,  of  Bean,  and  Cook,  and  the  portraits ;  he  told 
of  his  first  visit  to  Sharrow  and  how  he  came  to  love  it ;  he 
described  with  the  vividness  of  deep  feeling  his  strange 
friendship  with  his  old  uncle,  of  their  meeting-ground 
wherein  all  differences  of  age  and  circumstances  were  for- 
gotten ;  he  told  of  the  books  he  had  found  and  read,  of  the 
almost  holy  things  that  Sharrow  had  gradually  come  to 
mean  to  him,  of  the  Feeling  that  used  to  lift  him  up  into  a 
kind  of  heaven. 

And  Mary  listened  without  a  word,  almost  without  mov- 
ing. 

On  and  on  he  talked,  the  velvety  shadows  crept  over  the 
grass,  dew  fell,  the  sky  glowed,  darkened,  and  stars 
came  out.  Sandy  talked  on  and  suddenly,  when  she  had 
grown  so  used  to  his  voice  that  the  silence  seemed  loud, 
he  broke  off.  He  had  come  to  where  he  fell  in  love  with 
Viola. 

There  was  a  long  pause,  and  then  Mary  said  quietly: 

"Then  Viola  came — I  know,  Sandy." 

He  looked  up  in  the  gloom,  but  her  face  was  nearly  in- 
visible. ' '  You  know  how — Viola  came.  Do  you  know  how 
she — went  ? ' ' 

She  hesitated,  and  then,  because  to  her  it  was  not  only 
the  best,  but  the  simplest  thing  to  do,  she  told  him  the 
truth. 

"I  know  that  she  saw  you  when  you  had  been  drink- 
ing." 

He  gave  a  dreary  laugh.  ' '  Yes.  ...  It  was  worse  than 
that,  Mary.  She  saw  me  when  I  was  very  drunk.  And  I 


348  SHARROW 

put  her  on  the  piano  and  wouldn  't  let  her  get  down.  I  had 
le  vin  heureux — in  those  days.  Well — she  wrote  me  a  letter 
— she  called  me — things — and  I  knew  she  would  never  for- 
give me.  So  I  went  away.  I  took  Maggie  Penrose  with  me. 
You  remember  Maggie  Penrose?" 

Mary  had  given  a  little  start  at  the  name.  ' '  Yes ! — and 
you  took  her  with  you?" 

"Yes.  Oh,"  he  added,  again  with  a  dreary  laugh,  "I 
didn't  seduce  her.  She  wanted  to  come.  She — cared  for 
me.  She  was  good  to  me,  too,  Mary.  I — if  you  knew  about 
those  ten  years,  you  wouldn't  let  me  sit  here!" 

"Yes,  Sandy,  I  would." 

Her  quiet  voice  had  no  hesitancy  in  it,  and  no  mere  con- 
solation. It  rang  with  the  truth. 

Sandy  stirred  in  his  chair.  "Perhaps  you  would,"  he 
agreed,  listlessly;  "perhaps  it's  only  love  that  makes 
women  false  and  cruel." 

He  spoke  without  bitterness,  but  so  drearily,  so  hope- 
lessly, that  Mary  rose,  and  sitting  down  near  him,  laid  her 
hand  on  his.  ' '  Go  on,  Sandy, ' '  she  said ;  ' '  tell  me  all  there 
is.  We  are  friends." 

"So  we  went  away,"  he  began,  obediently.  He  told  his 
story  in  plain  words,  but  without  details.  ' '  I  was  a  drunk- 
ard when  they  found  me,"  he  finished. 

"You  are  no  drunkard  now." 

"No.  But — my  brother  has  deserted  me  now;  fooled 
and  deserted  me  as  your  sister  deserted  and  that  other 
woman  fooled  me.  And  he,  too,  loved  me.  That  is  per- 
haps," he  added,  his  voice  dropping  to  a  meditative  tone, 
' '  my  curse ;  to  be  hurt  by  people  who  love  me. ' ' 

Little  Sally,  who  had  twice  come  to  the  door  to  announce 
dinner,  and  twice  been  warned  away  by  her  mistress,  told 
Cook  that  she  was  sure  his  lordship  had  come  to  ask  Miss 
Mary  to  marry  him.  "He's  talking  about  love,"  the  little 
maiden  added,  importantly. 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  349 

Sandy's  talk  about  love  was  very  sad  hearing  for  his 
friend.  When  it  was  over  he  rose. 

"Thank  you,  Mary,"  he  said;  "you  have  been  very  pa- 
tient. I  never  thought  I  could  tell  my  miserable  story  to 
any  one,  but  I  am  glad  I  have  told  you.  You  know  how 
degraded  I  have  been,  how  vile  my  life  was  until  a  hazard 
brought  me  home " 

' '  Yes.  And  I  have  seen, ' '  she  answered, ' '  how  brave  you 
have  been  these  last  six  months.  I  know  what  your  ambi- 
tions have  been.  They  have  not  been  for  yourself " 

"No,"  he  thundered  suddenly,  "they  were  for — Syd!" 

' '  Not  altogether.  They  have  been  for  the  people  God  has 
put  more  or  less  into  your  hands ;  whose  happiness  depends 
more  or  less  on  you;  whose  very  health  hangs  more  or  less 
upon  your  will,  according  to  the  way  you  choose  to  house 
them " 

"More  or  less,  more  or  less,"  he  repeated  dreamily. 

' '  Yes.  I  don 't  know, ' '  she  went  on,  striking  a  match  and 
lighting  the  candles  in  a  double-branched  old  silver  candel- 
abra as  she  spoke,  ' '  whether  you  believe  in  God,  Sandy.  I 
do." 

He  never  forgot  her  expression  as  the  four  little  flames 
leapt  into  life  at  her  bidding  while  she  declared  her  simple 
faith. 

"I  believe  in  God,  and  when  I  said  more  or  less,  I 
suppose  I  meant  that  your  share  of  responsibility  is  the 
lesser  because  His  is,  of  course,  the  greater.  But  yours  is 
there,  and  would  be  if  Syd  married — half  a  dozen  Span- 
iards," she  added,  with  a  sudden  nervous  little  laugh  that 
betrayed  the  tension  she  had  been  under. 

After  a  pause  as  the  candle-light  steadied  and  shed 
its  soft  radiance  over  that  part  of  the  room,  he  answered 
her. 

"Thank  you  again,  Mary,  I  suppose  I  believe  in  God- 
some  one  certainly  made  us — but  if  you  had  not  been  here 


350  SHARROW 

this  afternoon,  I — I  don't  know  what  I  shouldn't  have 
done." 

Mary  took  his  hand  as  he  held  it  out,  and  her  dark  face 
hardened  suddenly. 

"I  hate  that  woman — I  always  did,  from  the  first  mo- 
ment I  saw  her.  And  she  must  be  ten  years  older  than 
Syd.  Oh,  Sandy!" 

Tears  came  to  her  eyes,  and  they  were  tears  of  helpless 
rage. 

Sandy  smiled.  "Poor  old  Mary!"  he  said.  "I  am  so 
glad  you  hate  her !  "Well,  good-by.  I  will  come  to-morrow, 
and  we  will  try  to  plan.  I  am  sure  the  marriage  of  a  minor 
can  be  set  aside." 

Mary  listened  to  his  footsteps  on  the  gravel.  Then  she 
heard  the  gate  bang. 

Then  she  went  to  her  room,  knelt  by  her  bed,  and  cried. 


CHAPTER  LVIII 

BUT  Syd's  marriage  was  not  set  aside.  The  next  morn- 
ing came  a  long  letter  from  the  boy,  a  letter  so  loving,  so 
incoherent,  so  full  of  hot  self-accusations  and  fiery  self- 
defences,  a  letter  so  chivalrous  and  brave  in  his  protection 
of  his  lady,  that  Sandy  showed  it  to  Mary  with  his  eyes 
wet. 

Syd  loved  Maria  Paz.  He  had  not  meant  to  trick  his 
old  Sandy,  for  he  had  never  known  that  it  was  love  till  the 
day  of  the  concert  at  Lady  Hainault's.  Then  she  had 
played  a  thing  that  just  sang  it  to  him,  and  he  saw  her  as 
she  really  was. 

' '  Do  you  remember  my  telling  you  her  bones  were  beauti- 
ful?" the  boy  wrote.  "Well,  it  was  her  soul  I  saw,  only 
I  didn't  know  it." 

Mary  groaned. 

"Go  on,"  Sandy  said. 

The  concert  had  been  early  in  April.  Syd  had  not  said 
a  word  to  Maria  Paz  until  after  the  funeral.  He  had  not 
dared,  she  was  so  superior  to  him.  And  he  had  on  two 
occasions  meant  to  tell  Sandy,  but  somehow,  remembering 
how  plain  he  himself  had  used  to  think  his  love,  he  had 
not  dared.  Suppose  Sandy  had  laughed! 

Then,  when  Sandy  was  in  town  that  fortnight  after  the 
funeral,  he  was  always  being  with  the  solicitor  and  things, 
and  Syd  had  not  liked  to  interrupt.  He  had  meant  to  tell 
Sandy  before  he  spoke  to  Maria  Paz,  but  a  week  before  the 
writing  of  the  letter  he  had  lost  his  head  and  blurted  it  all 

351 


352  SHARROW 

out  to  her,  and  found  that  the  miracle  had  happened ;  she, 
too,  loved  him. 

"And  Don  Ramon  had  to  go  to  Spain  on  business,  San- 
dear,"  the  boy  concluded,  "and  she  wouldn't  let  him  go 
alone.  You  know  how  she  always  takes  care  of  him.  They 
were  going,  and  I — Sandear,  I  found  I  couldn't  bear  it. 
So  I  persuaded  her.  She  didn't  want  to  do  it.  She 
wanted  to  wait,  but  I  wouldn't.  And  I  got  a  S.  L.,  and  we 
were  married  this  morning. ' ' 

Mary  had  read  thus  far  in  a  rapid  undertone,  but  she 
finished  the  letter  in  silence.  Syd  was  so  rapturous,  so 
grateful  for  his  overwhelming  good  luck,  and  sure  that, 
when  Sandy  came  to  know  his  beloved  as  he  did,  Sandy, 
too,  would  adore  her,  that  the  words  did  not  bear  repe- 
tition. It  would — although  she  was  convinced  that 
he  had  been  tricked,  that  his  bride  was  a  scheming,  bad 
woman — be  a  kind  of  sacrilege.  He  ended  by  giving 
his  address  at  Barcelona,  where  they  were  to  arrive  the 
next  night  but  one  after  the  writing  of  the  letter,  and 
where  he  knew  Sandear  would  send  him  a  wire  of  con- 
gratulation with  a  kind  message  of  some  sort  for  "Mrs. 
Syd." 

There  was  a  postscript  which  Mary  did  read  aloud. 

"It  is  so  funny  to  think  that  I  ever  thought  her  ugly. 
Of  course,  she  was  badly  dressed,  but  her  face  is  so  won- 
derful that  I  must  have  been  mad  to  think  she  wasn't 
lovely.  And  now  that  she  has  learned  our  English  way  of 
dressing — oh,  well,  you'll  see.  I  am  sure  you  and  she  will 
get  on  famously.  She  admires  you  tremendously,  does  Mrs. 
Syd!" 

The  two  friends  sat  in  Mary's  drawing-room  all  the 
morning.  It  was  raining,  a  day  of  showers  and  spasmodic 
sunshine. 

They  discussed  the  marriage  from  every  possible  point  of 
view,  and,  in  every  way,  what  step  Sandy  ought  to  take. 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  353 

One  thing  was  certain.  If  Sandy  proposed  to  the  young 
husband  that  the  marriage  should  be  annulled,  Syd  would 
never  forgive  him. 

"Whether  she  is  worth  it  or  no,  and,  after  all,  Sandy," 
Mary  added  in  the  increased  wisdom  that  the  night  had 
brought  her,  ' '  she  may  be.  All  one  really  knew  against  her 
is  her  looks,  and  those  she  can't  help.  Whether  she  is 
worth  his  love  or  no,  she  has  got  it,  and  he  is  happy.  Now, 
if  you  made  a  row,  you'd  not  only  fail  to  make  him  give 
her  up,  but  you'd  lose  his  love  for  you.  And  that  mustn't 
be." 

"I  suppose  you're  right.  But  if  I  saw  her  now,  I'd — 
I'd  break  her  in  two!" 

Mary  nodded.  ' '  I  know.  And  I  'd  help  you.  Oh,  Sandy, 
we  are  very  unregenerate,  both  of  us,  aren't  we?  As  it 
happens,  though,  they  are  in  Barcelona,  or  will  be  to-night. 
And  they  are  married.  I  can  think  of  only  one  thing  to 
do." 

"And  that  is?" 

His  face  was  very  old-looking,  very  haggard  in  the 
morning  light. 

"Grin  and  bear  it.  Unpoetic  advice,  but — I  know  no 
better.  If  she  loves  him,  I  should  think,"  her  voice  soft- 
ened, a  little,  "that  his  love  would  bring  out  the  best  in 
her." 

"Should  you,  indeed?"  he  interrupted  with  a  sudden 
sneer. 

She  raised  her  head,  and  looked  at  him  in  reproof. 

"Yes.  My  sister  was  a  child,  Sandy,  and  a  weak  na- 
ture. This  woman  is  nearly  as  old  as  I  am  now,  and  what- 
ever else  she  may  be,  she  is  certainly  a  strong  nature.  Do 
not  compare  the  two,  for  I  love  my  sister,  though  I  saw  her 
fault  towards  you." 

He  held  out  his  hand.  "Forgive  me.  I  beg  your  pardon. 
Well,  what  must  I  do  then?" 


354  SHARROW 

"I  should  wire  him  to  this  Hotel  of  Four  Nations,  and 
wish — happiness — to  them  both. ' ' 

"Good  God,  Mary!" 

"Well,  I  should.  You  can  do  as  you  like,  of  course, 
but  you  asked  my  advice,  and  I  am  giving  it  you.  Then 
I  should  write  to  Syd.  I  should  say  that  his  marrying  a 
woman  who  was  not  an  Englishwoman  has  been  a  blow ; 
that  you  wish  he  had  not  married  a  woman  older  than  him- 
self;  that  you  are  disappointed,  but  that — that — after  all, 
it  is  his  affair,  and  that  when  they  come  back  you  will  do 
your  best  to  be  friends  with  her.  Then — I'd  send  them  a 
cheque  and  tell  them  to  take  their  honeymoon  wherever 
they  like  and  ask  them  to  come  to  Sharrow  for  a  long 
visit — say  early  in  October." 

"But  why  in  October?" 

She  lost  patience  at  his  denseness.  "Oh,  you  utter 
goose!"  she  cried,  "can't  you  see?  By  October  you  will 
have  got  a  little  used  to  it ;  you  will  be  able  to  control  your 
temper,  and  to  behave  in  a  way  that  will  keep  his  love 
for  you.  Then  she,  having  plenty  of  money,  will  refuse  to 
spend  another  winter  in  this  'peeg'  of  a  climate,  and  off 
slie  will  take  him  to  Egypt  or  somewhere,  and  you  will 
be  at  peace  again." 

Sandy  saw  her  wisdom,  but  she  did  not  see,  he  thought, 
what  his  loneliness  would  be.  Syd  was  to  have  been  with 
him;  to  work  with  him;  Syd's  name  was  to  have  been  as- 
sociated with  him  in  every  kind  of  improvement  he  under- 
took on  the  estate. 

And  now  Syd  was  to  be  in  Egypt  with  his — wife.  Poor 
Sandy  groaned  aloud. 

However,  he  finally  agreed  to  what  Mary  said  and  they 
walked  together  to  White  Shirley  to  send  the  telegram 
to  Barcelona. 

Mrs.  Pragholm  studied  the  words  with  friendly  curiosity, 
which  Mary  saw. 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  355 

"Isn't  it  a  surprise,  Mrs.  Pragholm?"  she  said,  just 
touching  Sandy's  arm  in  warning.  "Mr.  Sydney  is  mar- 
ried !  We  none  of  us  knew  it  was  to  be  for  some  time. ' ' 

"Dear  me,  Miss!  I  do  'ope  Mr.  San — my  lord,  that 
your  lordship  is  'appy  about  it.  'E  do  seem  young,  Mr. 
Sydney ! ' ' 

"He  is  very  happy,"  Sandy  replied  with  a  feeling  of 
the  deepest  duplicity. 

When  they  had  gone  their  way,  Mrs.  Pragholm  rushed 
across  to  the  "White  Stag"  to  tell  her  crony,  Miss  Betsy 
Finn,  that  Mr.  Syd  was  married,  and  'is  lordship  'eart- 
broken  about  it.  The  congratulations  of  the  villagers  and 
the  servants  were  but  poor,  perfunctory  words.  No  one  had 
liked  Maria  Paz,  and  some  of  the  peasants  even  inclined  to 
the  belief  that  she  was  not  a  white  woman. 

Mrs.  Puddifant  celebrated  the  occasion  by  giving  notice. 

"Surely  you  won't  desert  me,  Pud,"  Sandy  protested, 
"just  because  I  have  a  sister-in-law?" 

' '  No,  my  lord,  oh,  no ! "  the  old  woman  replied,  her  hands 
high-folded,  "but  at  my  time  of  life,  I  don't  feel  able 
to  undertake  a  new  mistress." 

"I  am  sure  Mrs.  Sharrow  would  never  think  of  inter- 
fering. ' ' 

"Are  you,  my  lord?  Well,  I  can  only  'ope  your  lord- 
ship is  right." 

Sandy  said  no  more. 

Turner  said  that  his  opinion  was  of  no  value,  but  that 
for  his  part  he  didn't  care  for  women  with  yellow  faces. 

As  to  poor  old  Dingle,  he  said  nothing,  but  his  eyes  were 
eloquent  of  sympathy. 

Sandy  had  a  miserable  week  of  attempted  congrat- 
ulations, and  then  the  matter  settled  into  the  position 
of  an  unalterable,  accepted  fact,  and  no  more  was  said 
about  it. 

Syd  and  his  wife  went  to  Norway  and  Sweden  for  the 


356  SHARROW 

summer,  and  Sandy  and  Mary  worked  very  hard,  saying 
but  little  about  the  young  couple. 

Sandy  had  grown  older,  and  spoke  less  than  before,  but 
he  tried  hard  to  be  as  interested  in  his  new  duties  as  he  had 
been  before  the  news  came,  and  Mary  knew  that  his  having 
the  will  even  to  try  meant  much. 

It  was  a  warm,  dry  summer,  and  almost  imperceptibly  it 
wore  away  into  the  autumn.  One  day  in  late  September, 
a  wire  came  from  Paris. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sydney  Sharrow  were,  it  said,  on  their 
way  home. 


CHAPTER  LIX 

THE  train  was  due  at  six  in  the  evening,  and  at  five 
minutes  before  six,  Sandy  was  at  the  station.  He  had 
come  in  the  big  motor,  and  there  was  a  cart  for  the  lug- 
gage. He  greatly  disliked  his  new  sister,  as  he  considered 
Maria  Paz,  but  as  she  was  his  sister,  all  honor  should  be 
done  to  her. 

It  had  rained  all  day ;  the  evening  might  have  been 
painted  as  a  typical  English  October  evening.  The  trees 
near  the  station  were  not  draped  with  fog,  but  they  were 
veiled  with  a  delicate  pearly  mist  that  hid  their  angles  and 
lent  them  a  grace  unknown  to  their  best  summer  days ;  the 
low-hung  sky  was  gray,  too,  but  a  lead  gray,  heavy  and 
menacing,  as  if  heavy  with  unborn  rain. 

Sandy,  as  he  marched  up  and  down  the  little  platform 
waiting  for  the  train,  noticed  all  these  things,  and  the  Eng- 
lish soul  of  him  rejoiced,  as  a  Southerner's  soul  might  re- 
joice in  the  blue  of  his  native  sky,  the  clarity  of  his  home 
air.  This  was  gray,  and  chill,  and  dull,  but  it  was  England, 
and  for  hundreds  of  years  different  men  of  the  Sharrow 
stem  had  awaited  the  women  who  were  God-bidden  to  carry 
on  the  name,  in  just  such  dull,  characteristic  weather. 
Sharrow  brides  had,  of  course,  come  in  the  glory  of  June, 
the  grandeur  of  August,  as  well;  but  these  evenings  like 
molten  granite  were  of  all  English  evenings  the  most  typ- 
ical of  the  land.  Maria  Paz  Suarez  had  been  a  Spaniard ; 
Sandy  disliked  her;  but  now  she  was,  by  virtue  of  the 
marriage  sacrament  of  Syd's  young  love,  the  woman  who 

357 


358  SHARROW 

was  to  carry  on  the  old  name ;  her  son  was  to  be  Sharrow  of 
Sharrow,  and  his  sons  were  to  replenish  the  land.  And  as 
such  Sandy  awaited  her,  with  honor  and  respect  in  his 
heart. 

The  train  was  late;  the  station-master,  a  short,  fussy 
man  with  a  manner,  explained  that  a  minor  mishap  on  the 
line  had  occasioned  the  delay ;  he  was  apologetic,  humble,  as 
is  the  way  of  English  employes,  yet  he  lost  through  his 
manner  no  dignity  through  his  humility.  Sandy  under- 
stood, and  gave  him  a  cigar. 

The  clock  struck.     It  was  six  o  'clock. 

A  local  train  came  in,  with  the  fuss  habitual  to  insig- 
nificant things.  A  woman  with  a  baby  in  her  arms  and 
another  on  the  way  had  lost  her  ticket  to  Mendborough. 
Sandy,  with  his  heart  full  of  love  for  women  who  were 
bearing  children,  bought  her  a  new  ticket,  and  fetched 
her  a  glass  of  beer  and  a  sandwich  from  the  little  bar  in  the 
station. 

This  Mr.  Clawson,  the  station-master,  considered  deroga- 
tory, but  he  dared  not  say  so.  So  the  commotion  in  his 
small  soul  made  no  stir  on  the  surface  of  his  manner,  and 
Sandy  never  knew.  Then  the  local  train  went  its  way ; 
Sandy  looked  at  his  watch,  and,  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
began  a  regular  tramp  up  and  down  the  little  platform. 
He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  receive  Maria  Paz  as  his  sis- 
ter. He  had  disliked  her;  even  yet  he  could  not  divest  him- 
self of  the  idea  that  it  was  not  from  such  as  her  that  the 
race  of  Sharrow  should  be  reinforced.  But  Syd  had,  out 
of  all  the  world,  chosen  her  to  be  his  wife,  and,  as  his  wife, 
she  was  a  woman  full  of  honor,  a  woman  to  be  liked  and 
respected. 

Therefore,  as  he  walked  there  in  the  chill  evening  air, 
while  the  occasional  light  of  a  train  blurred  the  gray  air, 
he  made  up  his  mind  that  she  should  find  in  him  a  brother. 
He  would  give  her  all  that  he  could  of  brotherly  affection 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  359 

and  understanding,  and  she  would  in  return  give  to  his 
house  all  the  good  that  was  in  her. 

There  is  much  poetry  in  a  railway  station  at  all  hours; 
the  meeting  and  parting  of  human  beings  contains  all 
that  there  is  of  happiness  and  tragedy  in  the  wide  world. 
But  at  night  when  the  light  is  the  symbol  of  the  coming 
or  going  of  a  vast  house  full  of  lives,  the  drama  and 
romance  are  inexpressible. 

The  very  rails,  like  polished  arrows  shooting  into  the 
blackness,  are  pregnant  with  imaginative  meaning,  and  to 
the  dreamer  full  of  poetry. 

Our  poor  Sandy,  though  he  did  not  know  it,  was  a 
dreamer,  and  so  this  little  country  meeting-place  of  trains 
fascinated  him  and  gave  his  mind  pause. 

His  whole  life,  he  thought,  was  over,  but  Syd's  young 
one,  as  yet  a  mere  blossom  on  a  bare  bough,  was  pregnant 
with  life,  and  would  bear  fruit.  He,  Sandy,  would  be  the 
gardener;  his  to  shelter,  to  prune,  to  reap,  for  him  must 
be  the  love  of  the  gardener. 

His  brother  had  chosen  this  dark  little  lizard-like  woman 
for  his  mate;  to  her  he  would  give  his  children;  through 
her  he  would  continue  his  race.  And  Sandy,  the  sterile 
tree,  would  yet  shadow  the  new  root,  and  out  of  his 
strength  help  it  to  wax  strong  and  firm.  As  he  walked 
there,  a  commonplace  enough  figure  in  his  long  tweed 
coat  with  its  collar  turned  up  around  his  ears  against  the 
cold,  Sandy  yet  embodied  poetry  in  himself,  for  the  old 
Feeling  had  come  back  to  him,  and  his  love  of  his  name, 
of  his  house,  burned  once  more  in  his  heart. 

Up  and  down  he  walked,  his  fists  clenched  hard  in  his 
pockets,  his  rough  brows  drawn  deep  over  his  eyes.  Syd 
was  coming,  and  Syd's  wife;  possibly,  even,  Syd's  son. 

Sandy  knew  that  he  would  not  ask  Maria  Paz  if  this  last 
possibility  were  a  fact;  but  he  wondered,  and  the  wonder 
warmed  his  heart. 


360  SHAEROW 

There  are  in  the  world  many  women  whose  primary 
functions  are  mother  functions;  there  are  few  men  who 
are,  before  anything  else,  fathers.  Sandy  was  one  of  these 
few.  His  heart  stirred  physically  as  he  thought  of 
Syd's  son,  a  little  being  he  could  hold  in  his  arms,  and 
give  to  Sharrow  as  he  was  giving  Sharrow  to  him,  Syd's 
son! 

It  was  nearly  seven,  and  Sandy  was  in  a  deep  dream 
about  this  hypothetical  child,  when  the  train  finally  came 
panting  through  the  fog  as  if  its  arrested  breathing  pow- 
ers had  delayed  its  arrival. 

"The  train  is  coming,  my  lord " 

And  Sandy,  quite  forgetting  that  he  was  my  lord,  stared 
blankly  at  his  informant,  the  solitary  porter  of  Sharrow 
station,  and  then,  remembering,  laughed,  gave  the  man 
sixpence,  and  walked  back  to  where  a  miniature  bustle  de- 
clared the  London  train  to  be  more  than  the  fabric  of  a 
dream. 

Syd  was  out  and  on  the  platform  almost  before  the  train 
had  stopped. 

' '  Sandy — dear  old  man ! ' ' 

"Syd!" 

The  two  men  shook  hands.  Then  Syd,  turning,  helped 
his  wife  to  alight,  and  presently  Sandy  found  himself 
shaking  hands  with  Mrs.  Sydney  Sharrow.  It  is  easy  to 
say  that  but  for  certain  things  one  would  not  have  known 
some  one,  but  Sandy  was  vitally  conscious,  as  this  little 
ceremony  was  gone  through  with,  that  literally  he  would 
not  have  recognized  in  his  sister-in-law  the  Maria  Paz  who 
had  played  and  betrayed  the  secret  of  Chopin  that  day  at 
the  Bechstein  Hall. 

This  thin,  little  lady,  who  came  out  of  her  dark  furs 
as  a  chestnut  would  come  all  shinily  out  of  its  burr,  was 
very  unlike  the  scrawny,  red-armed  girl  of  that  day.  , 

Maria  Paz  Suarez  had  had  small,  sulky,  black  eyes,  like 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  361 

currants  in  a  bun,  Ben  had  said;  this  lady,  this  Mrs. 
Sydney  Sharrow,  had  small  eyes,  it  is  true,  but  they  were 
dark  and  lustrous,  and  dwelt  on  her  brother-in-law's  face 
with  a  surety  of  purpose  and  a  certainty  of  welcome  that 
the  other  could  not  have  known. 

"I  am  glad,"  she  said,  showing  her  pretty  teeth,  can- 
didly, "to  come  home,  dear  Sandy." 

And  it  was,  even  to  his  prejudiced  ears,  quite  charming, 
the  way  she  said  it. 

She  was  coming  home;  she  knew,  and  assumed  in  her 
little  speech,  that  he  was  a  sterile  root;  that  to  her  was 
given  the  privilege  of  providing  a  new  blossom  for  the 
ancient  root;  yet  in  her  manner  was  no  triumph.  There 
was  pride,  but  Sandy  liked  pride,  and  had  no  wish  to 
quarrel  with  her  for  the  sentiment.  Her  mission  was  to 
him  a  holy  one;  why,  then,  should  she  not  feel  and  ex- 
press her  appreciation  of  its  quality? 

Gravely  he  shook  hands  with  her. 

' '  You  are  welcome, ' '  he  said,  adding  after  a  barely  per- 
ceptible pause,  "my  sister." 

Syd,  his  eyes  shining  with  unshed  tears,  took  his  broth- 
er's arm,  and  gave  it  a  very  hard  squeeze. 

"Sandear,  Sandear,"  he  murmured,  "she  is  an  angel; 
you  will  love  her,  and  she  will  love  you!" 

At  dinner,  Sandy  wondered  why  Maria  Paz,  hitherto 
desolatingly  flat-chested,  should  suddenly  have  become 
possessed  of  such  pretty  curves;  how  her  thin  arms,  still 
thin,  should  seem  merely  lithe  and  slim ;  how  her  oily  black 
hair  should  seem  glossy  and  almost  beautiful.  And,  be- 
cause he  was  Sandy,  he  told  himself  that  it  was  all  be- 
cause Syd  loved  her  and  she  loved  Syd  that  these  miracles 
had  come  to  pass. 

He  connected  not  the  hairdresser,  nor  the  Parisian  man 
dressmaker  with  the  change ;  for  all  his  sad  enlightenment, 
he  did  not  realize  the  means  that  had  been  used  to  the  end — 


362  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

which  is  only  one  way  of  saying  that  he  was  a  man,  not  a 
woman. 

Maria  Paz  wore  black,  and  in  her  hair  was  a  gardenia. 
Few  women  after  the  age  of  twenty  can  wear  natural 
flowers  in  their  hair,  but  she  could  because  she  was  Span- 
ish, and  because  she  had  chosen  her  flower  well.  Of  all 
flowers,  the  gardenia  is  the  least  sincere,  and  it  suited  her 
evenly  waved,  carefully  dressed  dark  locks. 

In  her  success  she  had  blossomed;  she  was  no  longer 
scrawny,  and  her  forearms  were  not  red  as  they  had 
formerly  been.  She  was  illuminated  by  the  softening  fire 
of  success,  and,  as  manners  maketh  the  man,  so,  surely, 
clothes  maketh  the  woman.  Many  lives  mast  have  been 
wrecked  by  a  mistaken  belief  in  the  silly  proverb  about 
beauty  unadorned. 

Maria  Paz  Suarez,  covered  as  decency  required  and  her 
national  bad  taste  chose,  was  worse  than  ugly;  she  was 
nearly  grotesque.  Maria  Paz  Sharrow,  covered  as  slightly 
as  decency  required  and  covered  by  a  French  artist,  was,  in 
her  consciousness  of  looking  almost  better  than  her  very 
best,  nearly  a  good-looking  woman. 

Sandy  ate  his  dinner  in  a  state  of  bewilderment.  Syd 
was  so  proud  of  his  wife,  so  gloriously  in  love,  so  trium- 
phantly a  slave,  that  Sandy  doubted  his  own  senses. 

Had  he  been  mad  about  the  Spanish  girl?  Had  she 
always  been  attractive,  and  he  only  a  blind  fool  to  doubt  it  ? 
Then  he  remembered  her  blue-white  frock  and  her  red 
wrist  bones,  and  he  bowed  in  the  presence  of  a  miracle. 

"Well?"  Syd  asked,  when  Maria  Paz  had  slid  from  the 
room  in  her  queer,  almost  imperceptible  way,  leaving  the 
two  men  alone. 

"How  do  you  mean  'well'?" 

"Isn't  she — isn't  she  marvelous?"  Syd  had  grown  a  lit- 
tle heavier  in  the  five  months  of  his  honeymoon;  his  face 
was  fuller ;  his  chest  looked  broader.  His  delicate  look  had 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  363 

gone,  and  he  seemed  older,  but  triumphantly,  gloriously 
older,  as  if  he  himself  had  willed  the  hastening  of  maturity. 

Sandy's  heart  gave  a  little  twist  in  his  breast,  a  little 
twist  that  mothers  know. 

"She  is — wonderful,"  he  said,  seriously. 

Syd  leaned  towards  him  over  the  table.  "I  say,  Sandy, 
do  you  remember  the  concert?  And — the  absurd  things  I 
said  to  Ben?  Well" — the  boy's  voice  deepened — "I — I 
can't  tell  you  how  absurd  it  all  seems  now.  I  never  knew 
such  a — such  a  brain  in  my  life.  It's — it's  a  kind  of 
miracle  that  she  should  care  for  a  silly  ass  like  me,  and  yet 
— she  does." 

There  was  a  long  pause,  and  in  the  silence,  broken  only  by 
the  beautiful  crackling  sound  of  the  fire,  the  sound  that 
of  all  others  epitomizes  ''home"  to  homesick  British  ears, 
a  question  sprang  into  Sandy's  mind. 

It  sprang,  the  question,  into  immediate  maturity;  there 
was  no  hesitation  in  it  no  feeling  of  intrusion.  It  was  his 
to  know,  his  to  ask. 

' '  Syd,  dear  old  boy, ' '  he  said,  holding  out  his  thin  hand, 
and  sliding  into  it  Syd's  smooth  young  one,  "you  mustn't 
mind  telling  me;  you've  been  married  five  months — and  I — 
I  want  to  know — is  there  going  to  be  a  baby  ? ' ' 

Syd's  hand  grasped  his  strongly. 

"No,  Sandy,"  the  young  husband  answered,  his  dark 
eyes  on  his  brother's,  "not  yet." 


CHAPTER  LX 

MARY  WYMONDHAM  at  this  juncture  did  not  fail  Sandy. 
He  had  indeed  come  to  trust  to  her  friendship  and  coopera- 
tion, with  an  unquestioning  kind  of  faith  that  would  have 
surprised  him  had  he  noticed  it.  But  he  did  not;  he  ac- 
cepted her  much  as  a  man  accepts  a  sister,  except  for  the 
fact  that  his  trust  had  grown  slowly. 

In  his  early  youth  he  had  not  particularly  liked  her; 
she  was  inclined  to  be  dominating,  and  her  quick  tongue 
had  often  embarrassed  him  to  the  point  of  exasperation,  as 
often  happens  between  a  quick-witted  girl  and  a  rather 
slow-witted  man. 

Then,  too,  Mary  was  that  tragic  thing,  the  Plain  Sister. 
Viola's  loveliness  had  been  so  exquisite,  so  overwhelming, 
that  Mary's  good  looks  of  health,  honesty,  and  vigorous 
young  womanhood  had  never  received  even  the  scant  meed 
they  deserved.  She  had  been  a  kind  of  background  to  her 
sister,  and  such  was  her  adoration  for  Viola  that  she  did 
not  mind  this,  nor  ever  raised  a  finger  to  point  ever  so 
gently  to  her  own  good  points. 

Money  was  scarce  at  the  Vicarage,  and  all  the  fine  feath- 
ers that  she  could  collect,  Mary  gave  ungrudgingly  to 
Viola. 

And  thus  to  Sandy  Mary  had  appeared  merely  a  good 
sort,  with  a  rather  sharp  tongue,  and  he  had  hardly  ever 
talked  with  her. 

So  when  on  his  return  he  found  her  established  in  the 
Corner  House,  her  good  qualities,  mellowed  as  they  were 

364 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  365 

by  time,  and  softened  by  trouble,  came  to  him  with  a  kind 
of  surprise.  Mary  was  gentle  now,  and  understanding,  and 
sympathetic;  these  things  astonished  him  faintly,  but  his 
own  liking  for  her  did  not  astonish  him,  because  he  never 
envisaged  it.  In  the  amazement  of  his  new  position,  the 
weight  and  splendor  of  his  new  responsibilities,  the  fact 
that  Mary  Wymondham  was  his  close  friend  escaped  him, 
he  believed  her  to  be  an  unimportant  factor  in  his  life, 
whereas  she  knew  that  she  was  of  great  value  to  the  iso- 
lated, discouraged  man  whose  heritage  had  come  too  late. 
His  fine,  careless  rapture  was  gone,  as  the  flush  in  the  sky 
goes  when  once  the  sun  is  above  the  horizon;  but  the  sun 
has  to  run  its  course,  and  perhaps  it  never  remembers  the 
flush  that  greeted  it  as  it  climbed  over  the  edge  of  the 
world. 

Mary  Wymondham  was  not  a  detestable  woman,  there- 
fore it  need  not  be  said  that  she  was  nearly  free  from 
vanity;  but  her  sane,  well-balanced  mind  possessed  clear 
eyes,  and  with  them  she  saw  how  greatly  Sandy  needed  her, 
and  she  gave  to  him  with  both  hands. 

' '  You  must  help  me,  Mary, ' '  he  said  to  her  the  morning 
after  Syd's  return  with  his  wife.  "I  shall  have  a  hardish 
row  to  hoe,  for  I  do  not  like  her,  and  I  never  shall,  but 

' '  But  you  must  do  your  best ;  exactly,  Sandy.  No  more 
do  I  like  her,  but — there  must  be  something  in  her  that 
you  and  I  can't  see,  or  Syd  wouldn't  love  her — I  suppose," 
she  added,  after  a  little  pause,  during  which  her  well- 
shaped  brownish  hands  with  their  polished  nails  were  busy 
with  some  hyacinth  bulbs  she  was  potting. 

Sandy  looked  at  her  hands  with  the  far-off  look  in  his 
small  gray  eyes  that  would  have  seemed  so  much  more  ap- 
propriate to  Syd's  lustrous  brown  ones.  "Oh,  no,  there's 
no  doubt  about  that.  He  certainly  loves  her.  In  fact — it's 
a  strange  thing,  Mary,  but  the  boy  seems  almost  to  idolize 
her.  And  even  now,  with  all  her  improvements — her  good 


366 

clothes,  her  well-dressed  hair,  all  the  little  things  a  man 
can't  describe,  but  can  only  feel — she  is  so  desolatingly 
ugly.  She  is  like  a  lizard  or  something.  Her  eyes  don't 
seem  to  look  at  things,  they — seem  to  dart  at  'em.  She  has 
been  playing  the  piano  this  morning,  and  he  sat  positively 
drinking  it  in.  It — it  was  almost  painful,  Mary ;  that  beau- 
tiful boy- 
Mary  rubbed  some  loose  earth  from  her  hands.  ' '  It  isn  't 
really  painful.  You  mustn't  get  hipped  about  it.  After 
all,  she  seems  to  be  a  singularly  gifted  woman,  and — Syd 
is  not  singularly  gifted." 

Sandy  frowned.  This  was  one  of  her  old-time  speeches 
that  annoyed  him.  What  she  said  was  perfectly  true,  but 
it  seemed  to  him  that  she  need  not  have  said  it. 

Syd  was  Syd,  and  to  Sandy  the  one  really  perfect  thing 
in  the  world. 

Mary  eyed  him  critically,  her  nose  a  little  wrinkled,  as 
was  her  way  when  anything  caused  her  to  feel  scornful. 
Sandy  was  really  rather  idiotic  about  Syd,  she  thought, 
and  her  thought  was  writ  large  in  her  face. 

"Don't  care  for  that  remark,  do  you?"  she  asked  him, 
her  nose  resuming  its  customary  smoothness  as  he  did  not 
speak.  Then  he  laughed. 

"I  am  an  ass,  just  as  you  think,"  he  said,  "but — I  feel 
exactly  as  though  he  were  my  son,  you  know." 

"H'm!  Boys  of  fifteen  don't  generally  have  sons,  do 
they  ?  However,  I  know  what  you  mean,  and  I  meant  only 
that — well,  let's  regard  Maria  Paz  (detestable  name!)  as 
spilt  milk,  and  waste  no  tears  on  her." 

Sandy  wasted  no  tears  on  his  sister-in-law.  His  manner 
towards  her  was  of  a  suavity  so  unusual  in  him  that  Syd 
marvelled  openly. 

"I  say,  Sandear,  you  are  a  blessed  old  courtier,"  the 
boy  declared  one  day,  as  the  two  were  on  their  way  to 
the  stables  to  inspect  a  new  Irish  mare  that  Sandy  was 


S  H  A  R  K  0  W  367 

giving  Syd  for  a  birthday  present.  ' '  Maria  Paz  says  your 
manners  are  as  good  as  any  Spaniard's,  and  that  means  a 
lot  from  her,  I  can  tell  you!" 

"Thanks,"  Sandy  returned  a  little  dryly,  for  he  knew 
what  Syd  had  apparently  never  learned,  that  there  were 
many  kinds  of  Spaniards,  and  that  his  sister-in-law  did  not 
spring  from  the  hidalgo  class.  He  had  been  in  Spain ;  he  re- 
membered that  the  vast  majority  of  that  country's  male 
inhabitants  went  through  life  with  a  grave  courtesy  very 
much  marred  by  ruthless  and  constant  spitting,  and  some 
instinct  told  him  that  Maria  Paz'  mankind  were  of  the 
spitting  kind. 

"She  says,"  continued  Syd,  as  they  reached  the  stables, 
"that  you  are  the  only  man  in  England  who  can  bow." 

Then  Sandy  used  a  rude  monosyllable  relative  to  the 
after  world,  and  told  his  young  brother  to  tell  his  wife 
not  to  make  idiotic  remarks. 

"My  manners  are  beastly,"  he  declared,  "and  if  they 
weren't,  she  has  no  right  to  generalize  about  Englishmen, 
of  whom  she  knows  only  half  a  dozen  at  most.  English 
gentlemen  have  the  best  manners  in  the  world.  Tell  her 
so." 

Syd  laughed.  He  was  never  hurt  by  his  brother 's  rough- 
ness, and  he  was  too  happy  over  Sandy 's  apparent  liking  of 
his  wife  to  take  exception  to  this  minor  outbreak. 

The  world  was  full  of  sun  to  Syd;  he  adored  his  wife, 
all  of  whose  best  qualities  were  brought  out  by  prosperity, 
and  her  strange  playing  affected  him  almost  as  a  charm 
might  have  done.  She  could  be  a  goblin  at  the  piano,  but 
also  she  could  be  what  seemed  to  him  an  angel.  And  he 
saw  and  heard  only  the  angelic  in  her. 

As  the  autumn  days  shortened  into  winter  ones  Sandy, 
much  as  he  disliked  Maria  Paz,  found  himself  more  and 
more  bound  to  acknowledge  that  she  had  one  great  quality. 

Maria  Paz  Sharrow  could  charm,  and  she  could  repel; 


368  SHAEROW 

she  could  not  bore.  She  was  never  in  the  way,  nor  out  of  it 
when  wanted.  She  seemed  to  possess  a  gift  of  being  apro- 
pos ;  she  never  obtruded  even  the  sight  of  herself.  She  was 
quiet,  dark,  very  silent ;  one  never  felt,  as  Sandy  put  it  to 
Mary,  the  ' '  Oh,  my  God,  is  she  being  bored  ? ' '  feeling.  She 
was  one  of  the  very  few  women  who  could  be  let,  and  who 
let,  alone. 

"She  is  really  not  at  all  bad,"  Mary  agreed,  "and  she 
makes  the  boy  so  happy  that  he  shines.  She  has  rubbed  him 
with  mental  and  moral  phosphorus.  And  she  played 
divinely  last  night." 

Old  Lady  Hainault  was,  of  all  the  people  invited  to  meet 
the  bride,  the  only  who  did  not  more  or  less  succumb  to 
what  seemed  her  unconscious  charm.  Maria  Paz'  charm 
was  not  that  of  other  women ;  she  neither  smiled,  nor  flat- 
tered, and  she  was  not  over  amiable  about  her  music,  for 
she  played  only  and  whenever  the  mood  seized  her. 

Her  black  eyes  looked  steadfastly  at  people,  but  they 
had  no  softness,  no  sweetness.  She  seemed  in  a  curious 
way  to  be  saying  mutely :  "  I  won 't  raise  a  finger  to  make 
you  like  me;  I  will  be  passive:  and  if  you  all 'loathe  me, 
then  I'll  loathe  you." 

But  people  did  not  loathe  her. 

Only  Lady  Hainault  told  Sandy  that  she  could  not  stand 
the  new  Mrs.  Sharrow. 

"Of  course,  you'll  say  my  nose  is  out  of  joint  because 
of  Isabel.  And  my  nose  is  out  of  joint.  I  wanted  him  to 
marry  her,  because  he  was  always  a  love  of  a  boy,  he  is  to 
be  rich,  and  so  on.  But  it  isn't  that.  It's  this.  Er — shall 
I  go  on  ?  I  feel  that  I  am  about  to  become  very  rude. ' ' 

"Become  rude,  then — only  go  on,"  Sandy  urged  her. 

The  old  lady  eyed  him  with  an  expression  that  in  her 
youth  had  been  seraphic. 

"She  is  such  a  horrible  little  cad,  you  know,"  she  said. 
" Now  ain 't  I  rude?" 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  369 

"You  are,  very." 

Sandy's  own  expression  was  so  unmoved  that  an  instinct 
of  coquetry  (which,  like  the  worm,  never  dies),  stirred  her 
ancient  heart. 

"If  I  were  twenty  years  younger,"  she  declared  with 
an  archness  that  would  have  been  macabre  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  she  herself  saw  and  laughed  at  its  absurdity, 
"your  freedom  wouldn't  be  worth  a  day's  purchase.  I 
should  marry  you." 

' '  That  would  be, ' '  Sandy  returned  laughing,  ' '  a  case  of 
crabbed  age  and  youth — I  being  crabbed  age.  You  are 
younger  than  your  twin  granddaughter  at  this  very  min- 
ute, Lady  Hainault,  and  you  know  it." 

So  she  liked  Sandy  very  much. 

And  Maria  Paz,  always  beautifully  dressed,  always  fol- 
lowed by  Syd's  adoring  eyes,  began,  at  Sandy's  request,  to 
give  dinner-parties  at  Sharrow,  and  at  these  parties  she 
learned — learned  the  manners  and  ways  of  the  people 
amongst  whom  she  had  come  to  live. 

She  was  adaptable  as  a  clamberer,  yet  her  manner 
seemed  always  to  be  saying :  "  I  will  not  budge  to  suit  you ; 
if  you  don't  like  me  as  I  am,  you  can  hate  me;  I  don't 
care." 

Then,  after  a  month  of  rain,  during  which  she  sat  con- 
stantly over  a  fire,  with  a  thick,  soft  shawl  about  her  shoul- 
ders, came  the  birthday  party,  and  the  episode  of  the 
orange-colored  gown. 


CHAPTER  LXI 

FROM  the  moment  of  his  first  arrival  at  Sharrow  the 
room  that  had  made  the  greatest  appeal  to  Syd  had  been 
the  so-called  Chinese  Room.  The  faded  colors  on  the  satin 
walls — the  ancient  embroideries,  not  stretched  but  hung  in 
soft  smooth  folds — had  held  for  the  boy  some  subtle  charm, 
and  for  the  man  the  charm  was  the  same. 

Then,  too,  the  old  porcelain  vases  with  their  brave  bright- 
ness of  colors,  their  apple  green,  their  bullock-blood  red, 
were  of  the  refined,  subtle  art  that  Syd  best  understood. 
The  grinning  dragons  were  to  him  not  curious,  or  repul- 
sive; they  possessed  a  real  beauty. 

Sandy,  whose  own  associations  with  the  room  were  not 
very  pleasant,  had  remembered  his  brother's  old  love  for 
it;  and  when  the  young  married  pair  arrived  they  found 
that  the  Chinese  Room,  to  whose  rather  scant  furniture 
had  been  added  a  beautiful  little  Bechstein  grand  piano, 
had  been  dedicated  to  their  exclusive  use. 

Sandy,  being  of  the  old-fashioned  type  of  man  who  has 
fixed  ideas  about  the  general  needs  of  women,  had  set 
flowering  plants  about  on  the  floor,  and  a  couple  of  five- 
foot-high  rose  glasses  were  continually  replenished  with 
what  the  really  pleased  Maria  Paz  called  "long-legged" 
red  roses. 

"It  is  good  of  you,  Sandy,"  she  said,  looking  at  him 
with  a  queer  little  light  in  her  eyes.  "Thanks." 

And  Sandy  knew  that  she  knew  of  his  deep-rooted  dis- 
trust of  her,  and  that  she  had  made  up  her  mind  never  to 

370 


S  H  A  R  R  0  V  371 

try  to  remove  it.  For  this  he  respected  her.  In  some  ways 
they  were  alike :  in  their  powers  of  silence ;  in  their  dogged 
passivity;  and  greatly  as  he  hated  Syd's  having  married 
her,  he  yet  could  not  withhold  from  himself  the  knowledge 
that  she  puzzled  and  interested  him  more  than  ever. 

And  as  rooms  often  take  on  something  of  the  character- 
istics of  the  women  who  live  in  them,  so  the  queer  Chinese 
Room  with  its  faint  embroideries,  its  vivid  porcelains,  its 
all  but  priceless  bronzes,  grew  to  look,  in  Sandy 's  eyes,  like 
his  inscrutable  little  sister-in-law. 

One  thing,  ever  since  her  arrival,  had  brought  his  mind 
to  a  halt:  her  clothes,  her  beautiful  black,  white,  gray,  or 
mouse-colored  frocks  suited  her  to  perfection,  yet 
he  felt,  somehow,  in  the  depths  of  his  unenlightened,  mascu- 
line brain  that  they  did  not  express  her. 

"But  they  are  beautiful,"  Mary  Wymondham  expostu- 
lated, when  he  confided  this  inarticulate  conviction  to  her. 
"I  never  saw  a  better- dressed  woman." 

He  nodded.  "I  know,  of  course,  they  are  beautiful,  but 
they — they  aren't  her,  somehow.  They  don't  speak  for  her 
as — well,  as  yours  speak  for  you,  for  instance,  Mary. ' ' 

Mary  blushed  bravely,  looking  at  him.  "How  dear  of 
you  to  say  that !  But  do  you  really  think  my  tweeds  and 
flannels  express  all  of  me,  Sandy  ? ' ' 

There  was  in  her  voice  a  certain  wistfulness,  which  he 
answered. 

"And  your  beautiful  soft  velvets  and  your  laces!  Don't 
forget  your  fine  feathers.  Yes,  I  do  think  your  clothes 
express  you.  I  can't  explain  just  what  I  mean,  but  I 
do." 

And  Mary,  still  blushing,  laughed,  and  understood. 

The  day  before  Sandy 's  thirty-fourth  and  Syd  's  twenty- 
first  birthday,  a  cousin  of  Maria  Paz'  came  to  Sharrow — 
a  Seiiora  Cristina  Lopez. 

The  arrival  of  this  unknown  woman  made  Sandy  very 


372  SHARROW 

nervous.  There  was  to  be  a  birthday  dinner  and  a  dance, 
and  somehow,  with  the  desolating  extra  sense  that  was  his, 
Sandy  knew  that  Cristina  Lopez  would  be  what  he  men- 
tally classified  as  dreadful. 

"Maria  Paz  isn't  dreadful,"  Mary  suggested,  "so  why 
should  her  cousin  be?" 

' '  Every  flock  has  its  flower.  I  feel  that  Maria  Paz  is  the 
flower  of  hers.  Although,"  he  added,  justly,  "the  old 
father  wasn't  bad." 

Cristina  Lopez  was  "bad."  She  was  a  short,  full- 
bosomed  Catalonian  with  much  bluish-white  rice  powder 
on  her  dark  face,  and  with  a  harsh,  loud  voice. 

She  was  the  wife  of  a  Barcelonian  doctor,  and,  having 
been  several  times  to  Paris,  and  once  to  Rome,  she  had  a 
delightful  conviction  that  the  world  was  hers. 

As  she  drank  her  tea  with  an  elegant  curve  of  her  little 
finger  on  which  gleamed  a  large  turquoise,  Sandy  watched 
her  with  a  kind  of  impatient  amusement.  It  was  gall  to 
him  that  Syd's  wife  should  be  looked  down  upon,  but  life 
had  taught  him  its  sad  lesson  of  "after  all,  why  not?"  and 
in  her  portentousness  Senora  Lopez  was  really  funny.  Syd 
saw  the  portentousness,  but  he  had  not  the  sense  of  humor 
of  his  lean- jawed  brother. 

"I  say,  Sandy,"  he  murmured,  while  the  Barcelonian 
gave  Maria  Paz  a  voluminous  and  shrill  account  of  the  do- 
ings of  their  acquaintances  at  home,  "I  am  sorry." 

"Sorry  for  what,  old  child?"  Sandy  stretched  his  long 
legs,  and  looked  at  his  shoes  as  he  spoke.  He  had  hoped 
Syd  would  not  notice. 

"This — this  woman.    She's  fearful  I" 

"Rot!" 

But  Syd's  face  was  flushed  and  he  was  biting  his  lips 
nervously.  "Isn't  it  funny  how — how  near  relatives  can 
differ?" 

Sandy  was  about  to  agree  with  all  the  warmth  of  ac- 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  373 

quiescence  at  his  command,  when  Maria  Paz  rose  with  a 
little  shriek  and  darted  across  the  firelight  into  the  dark, 
which  she  at  once  destroyed  by  a  twist  of  the  electric  light 
button. 

' '  He  must  come, ' '  she  cried,  more  loudly  than  Sandy  had 
ever  heard  her  speak,  as  she  sat  down  at  a  writing  table. 
"Mi  querido  Miguel!  N'est-ce  pas,  Seed?  My  cousin, 
Miguel  Fons,  is  in  London.  He  must  come,  must  he  not,  for 
the  fiesta  to-night?" 

Sandy  rose.  ' '  If  you  know  the  name  of  his  hotel,  Maria 
Paz,  you  can  get  him  on  the  telephone,"  he  said,  quietly. 
"It  is  now  five-and-twenty  to  six — he  could  easily  be  here 
in  time  for  dinner." 

She,  too,  rose,  and  stood  facing  him.  Her  small,  fiery 
face,  with  its  curious  subdued  look,  was  turned  steadily 
to  his,  yet  she  seemed  to  be  melting  away  behind  it.  It 
was  as  if  her  spirit  retired,  leaving  her  eyes  to  guard  its 
flight. 

Sandy  waited,  and  after  what  was  really  only  a  second 
or  two,  but  which  seemed  a  very  long  time  to  him,  she 
thanked  him  conventionally,  and  he  rang  and  gave  the 
necessary  order  to  the  butler. 

Syd  was  surprised,  grateful,  and  ashamed  of  himself, 
and,  as  usual  with  him,  gave  vent  to  his  confused  feelings. 

"You're  a  wonder,  Sandear,"  he  said,  laying  his  hand 
on  Sandy 's  arm, ' '  you  only  like  her,  and  I — you  know  what 
I  feel;  yet  you  are  so — so  brave  about  her  relations." 

Sandy  laughed.  "Don't  be  a  confounded  young  snob," 
he  said.  "It's  very  nice  that  she  wants  them  to  come. 
Maria  Paz,"  he  added  in  a  louder  voice,  "I  cannot  speak 
your  beautiful  language,  but — remember  that  my  house 
is  your  house,  and  all  your  friends  are  welcome  to  it." 

He  did  not  know  why  he  said  this,  possibly  it  was  to 
combat  a  certain  horror  of  the  Spanish  woman's  people 
that  he  could  not  conquer ;  perhaps  it  was  a  fine  feeling  of 


374  SHARKOW 

loyalty  to  his  brother;  perhaps,  although  this  never  oc- 
curred to  him,  it  was  an  instinctive  sentiment  of  loyalty 
to  his  own  name,  his  own  house.  This  woman  was  now  a 
Sharrow;  therefore,  her  people  must  be,  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, his. 

However  this  may  be,  it  was  with  the  determination  to 
do  his  duty  to  the  fullest  extent  that  he  met  Miguel  Fons 
just  as  the  second  dressing-bell  went.  A  motor  had  been 
sent  to  the  train,  and  Sandy  heard  it  stop,  and  went  across 
the  court,  where  the  great  torches  were  burning  steadily  in 
the  quiet  winter  air,  to  meet  his  sister-in-law's  cousin. 

"How  do  you  do?"  he  said  gravely,  as  gravely  as  any 
Spaniard,  holding  out  his  hand. 

And  then  his  heart  sank,  for  Miguel  Fons  was  very 
loathsome  to  him.  The  man  was  small,  delicate-looking, 
and  his  great,  wet  black  eyes  swam  languorously  under 
heavy  lids.  He  was  clean  shaven,  but  needed  the  razor  at 
that  minute,  and  his  mouth  was  subservient  as  he  gave  a 
warm  hand  for  a  second  into  Sandy's  grasp. 

It  was  plain  that  he  was  overawed  by  the  gentleman 
whose  brother  his  cousin  had  married. 

As  they  went  back  across  the  courtyard,  the  dark  eyes 
seemed  to  absorb  its  beauties  in  a  way  that  was  almost 
offensive  to  Sandy. 

At  the  door,  the  Spaniard  bowed,  and  urged  his  host  to 
pass  in  before  him.  It  was  rather  horrible,  but  Sandy, 
with  something  he  knew  to  be  perilously  near  a  frown, 
insisted  on  his  guest's  preceding  him,  and  his  guest  finally 
obeyed.  The  man  was,  and  looked,  a  cad. 

With  all  his  heart,  as  he  dressed,  Sandy  wished  that 
Syd's  sight  might  be  blinded  to  this  fact.  Syd  was  so 
happy,  so  proud  of  his  wife,  it  seemed  a  pity  that  he  should 
have  to  blush  for  her  relatives. 

But  a  surprise  was  in  store  for  Sandy. 


CHAPTER  LXII 

MIGUEL,  clean-shaven  and  dressed  in  old  but  well-cut 
clothes,  had  a  quaint  little  success  of  his  own. 

Lady  Hainault,  who  sat  on  Sandy's  left,  the  duke  and 
duchess  being  present,  informed  her  host  that  the  beautiful, 
velvet-eyed  one  had  won  her  ancient  heart. 

"Very  good-looking,  isn't  he?  and  so  nice  and  foreign. 

"Very  foreign,"  Sandy  agreed,  dryly,  inwardly  mar- 
velling at  the  lack  of  perception  of  stay-at-home  English 
folk. 

"It's  a  pity  your  sister-in-law  hasn't  his  looks,"  pur- 
sued the  old  lady,  greatly  enjoying  her  aspic. 

"There  speaks  your  jealousy,  Lady  Hainault!  Still  bit- 
ter about  your  match-making  schemes ! ' ' 

"I  am.  Aren't  you?  Although,"  she  added,  suddenly 
serious,  "I  am  sure  she  must  be  very  nice,  or  Syd  couldn't 
be  so  in  love  with  her!" 

Miguel's  manners,  which  were  not  of  the  best,  caused 
poor  Syd  acute  misery,  but  the  Spaniard  made  great  prog- 
ress with  one  of  his  neighbors,  the  pretty  wife  of  a  hard- 
riding  squire.  Mrs.  Merridew  was  a  flirt,  and,  having  flirted 
with  every  flirtable  man  of  her  acquaintance,  felt  that  in 
flirting  with  a  black-eyed  Spaniard  she  was — even  though  he 
had,  before  a  quick  glance  at  her  own  manner  of  disposing 
of  them,  eaten  his  peas  with  his  knife — enlarging  her  out- 
look and  increasing  her  knowledge  of  the  world. 

So  the  dinner  went  peacefully  on,  and  towards  the  last  of 
it,  Miguel,  warmed  with  success  and  wine,  made  the  speech 

375 


376  SHARROW 

that  brought  about  the  episode  of  the  orange-colored 
frock. 

His  English  was  rather  attractive.  At  home  he  was  a 
dentist,  and,  his  degree  implying  a  knowledge  of  American 
dental  art,  he  had  studied  English  for  several  years.  The 
hesitation  necessitated  by  his  limited  vocabulary  lent  to 
his  words  a  grace  unknown  to  the  spate  of  his  Spanish  con- 
versation ;  he  borrowed  from  his  ignorance  a  false  modesty 
that,  lighted  by  his  velvety,  mournful  eyes,  was  charming. 

"Ah,  yes,"  Sandy  heard  him  say,  as  he  eyed  the  spoon- 
fuls of  ice  on  their  way  to  his  mouth,  with  a  childish  greed, 
"my  cousin  is  mucha  clever — very  clever.  And  a  great 
musician.  'Er  father,  muy  sabio,  is  a  great  scholar.  A 
wise  man;  un  senor  giudisimo.  We  are  poor,  but" — he 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  licked  his  spoon  openly. 

' '  He  is  rather  a  dear, ' '  Lady  Hainault  whispered.  ' '  And 
aren't  his  manners  too  quaint?" 

"But  I  like  not  her  clothes — close — cloves — como  se 
llama  f — clothes.  I  like  splendid  clo — clothes.  Nice  colors. 
Now  it  is  all  black. ' ' 

Mrs.   Merridew,   who  wore  scarlet,  was  flattered. 

"But  black  suits  Mrs.  Sharrow  so  well,"  she  protested. 

Miguel,  having  taken  some  cheese,  cut  it  into  dice  and 
popped  one  into  his  mouth  with  his  knife  with  admirable 
agility. 

' '  Black !  For  mornings- — para  ir  a  misa — to  go  to  Mass, 
yes.  But  for  her  in  Ingeland,  no.  You  wear  blue — I  mean 
red.  And  how  beautiful  it  is!  My  cousin  should  wear 
colors  and  be  beautiful,  too." 

Sefiora  Lopez  leant  forward.  She  was  gorgeous,  though 
tubby,  in  a  frock  covered  with  minute  gold  scales,  and  her 
ornaments  were  topazes. 

"Miguel,"  she  called  in  her  strident  voice,  continuing 
for  some  seconds  to  speak  in  Spanish. 

He  raised  his  eyebrows.    "All  si?  Bicn,  bien.  Good.  My 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  377 

cousin  tells  me,"  he  added,  turning  to  Syd,  "that  she 
brought  from  Paris  an  isplendid  robe  for  Maria  Paz!  It 
is  well." 

At  this  point,  the  duchess,  who  was  greatly  bored  by 
Miguel,  began  to  talk  to  Sandy  so  that  he  did  not  catch 
Syd's  reply.  That  Syd  was  annoyed,  however,  could  es- 
cape no  one.  Miguel  had  got  on  his  nerves;  there  was  to 
him  no  balm  in  the  Spaniard's  soft  eyes,  no  fun  in  his 
atrocious  manners.  He  was  bitterly  ashamed  of  his  wife's 
relations.  Turning  to  his  wife,  he  said  something  that 
Sandy  did  not  hear,  but  Sandy's  eyes  were  fixed  on  his 
sister-in-law's  face,  while  he  politely  responded  to  the 
duchess's  strictures  on  somebody's  high  notes  at  Covent 
Garden,  and  he  saw  that  Maria  Paz  was  furious.  Her 
small  face  went  white,  as  if  somebody  had  blown  out  a  light 
behind  it. 

Then  he  heard  a  strident  voice  saying  in  English:  "My 
cousin  is  right;  my  husband  has  dressed  me  like  an  old 
woman.  These  black-and-white  things  are  of  his  choice, 
not  mine,  and  I  like  them  not." 

There  was  a  short  pause,  at  the  end  of  which  Syd  was, 
judging  from  his  expression,  about  to  make  some  concilia- 
tory remark,  when  she  interrupted  him. 

"After  dinner,  Mrs.  Merridew,  I  will  put  on  a  dress 
my  cousin  Cristina  Lopez  got  for  me  in  Paris.  That  will 
show  you  that  in  matters  of  color  your  taste  and  mine 
agree."  . 

Cristina  Lopez  smiled  with  a  vast  amiability  at  this 
speech  . 

Miguel  smiled  languorously;  Syd  had  turned  white,  and 
now  sat  very  erect,  talking  to  his  right-hand  neighbor,  who 
was  Mary  Wymondham. 

"Of  course,"  Sandy  heard  the  peacemaker  say,  "your 
wife  likes  warm  colors;  all  southerners  do — personally,  I 
agree  with  you  that  the  grays  and  whites  become  her  best. 


378  SHARROW 

I  have  always  so  admired  her  clothes ;  I  was  telling  Sandy 
so  only  the  other  day.  But  after  all,  Syd  dear,  I  do  think 
you  oughtn't  to  be  cross  with  her  for  wishing  to  dress 
according  to  her  own  taste." 

Syd  groaned.  "I  know,  Mary,  you  are  quite  right,  only 
— you  see,  it's  a  most  curious  thing,  for  a  woman  so  artis- 
tic, but " 

Mary  gave  a  little  giggle  so  unlike  her  usual  laugh  that 
he  stopped  short  in  his  confidence,  which  was  what  she 
wanted,  and  stared  at  her. 

"I  do  hope  she  will  play  for  us  to-night,"  she  hastened 
to  say.  "The  duke  is  so  fond  of  music,  it  will  be  a  real 
treat  for  him." 

Syd's  face  was  clearing  now.  "Oh,  yes,  she'll  play — 
she's  so  awfully  kind,  you  know." 

And  Mary  wondered  how  a  youth  so  clear-witted  could 
be  so  blind. 

Sandy,  who  was  watching  his  brother's  conversation  with 
his  friend,  saw  with  satisfaction  that  Mary  was  succeeding 
in  smoothing  the  young  husband 's  anger.  Then  he  glanced 
at  his  sister-in-law,  and  his  heart  fell.  Maria  Paz  was  still 
angry,  and  it  was  a  kind  of  malicious  anger  that  half 
frightened  him.  There  was,  it  seemed  to  him,  real  venom 
in  her  hard,  high  laugh.  Her  face  had  changed  marvel- 
lously, she  looked  now  older  and  more  common  than  he 
had  hitherto  thought  her. 

Instinctively  his  eyes  sought  Mary's,  and  by  her  glance 
he  understood  that  she  shared  his  uneasiness. 

After  the  ladies  left  the  dining-room,  Sandy  listened  to  a 
long  ducal  discourse  on  the  subject  of  the  new  Franz  Hals, 
bought  by  the  government  for  the  National  Gallery.  Poor 
Sandy  did  not  know  whether  a  Franz  Hals  was  a  piece  of 
sculpture  or  a  picture,  but  he  listened  with  his  smooth  red 
head  bent  politely  to  the  old  man's  enthusiastic  meander- 
ings. 


SHARROW  379 

And  when  presently  he  conducted  his  male  guests  back  to 
those  of  the  feminine  gender  who  were  drinking  coffee  in 
the  Chinese  Room,  he  knew  that,  as  he  expressed  it,  they 
were  in  for  a  row.  Maria  Paz  had,  throughout  the  latter 
part  of  dinner,  looked  like  a  lurid  cloud;  she  meant  mis- 
chief. 

' '  The  hands,  my  dear  Sharrow, ' '  the  duke  was  saying  as 
the  door  was  opened,  "are  perfectly  marvelous.  Extraor- 
dinary— amazing Breaking  off  suddenly,  the  old 

gentleman  fumbled  for  his  monocle  and  screwed  it  firmly 
into  his  ancient  eye.  "By  Jove!"  he  repeated,  "amazing!" 

In  the  middle  of  the  room  stood  Maria  Paz  clad  from 
top  to  toe  in  bright  orange-colored  velvet.  The  gown  was 
extremely  decollete,  and  her  thin  brown  arms,  on  the  lower 
part  of  which  a  soft  brown  fur  was  very  visible,  were  bare 
to  the  shoulder,  and  separated  from  her  neck  only  by  a  nar- 
row strap  that  sparkled.  Her  hair  was  bunched  out  over 
her  ears,  and  in  it  she  had  stuck  a  huge,  loose-leaved,  crim- 
son artificial  flower. 

Her  face  was  as  white  as  paper,  but  her  thin  lips  were 
scarlet  and  parted  curiously  over  her  white  teeth.  She 
was  moving  very  slowly  to  the  rhythm  of  a  strange  minor 
melody  played  by  Miguel  Fons,  who  sat  sideways  at  the 
piano,  his  legs  crossed,  a  cigarette  between  his  lips. 

Sandy  hardly  realized  at  first  that  she  was  dancing,  so 
slow  were  her  movements,  but  the  duke  enlightened  him. 

"A — by  Jove!  And  very  well  she  does  it!  When  I 
was  at  the  Embassy,  at  Madrid,  there  was  a  woman  at  the 
Alhambra  who"— he  broke  off  short,  for  the  lady  of  his 
reminiscence  was  hardly  one  to  be  compared  to  his  host's 
sister-in-law. 

Suddenly  Maria  Paz  spoke  to  her  cousin. 

"Toca  mas  airat,  Miguel,"  she  said  sharply. 

The  scene  would  have  been  more  dramatic  if  Maria  Paz 
had  burst  into  a  wild  and  indecent  garrotin,  but  she  did 


380  SHARROW 

nothing  of  the  sort.  Instead,  she  stood  there,  swaying,  her 
willow  wands  of  arms  waving  in  the  air,  her  eyes  half 
closed.  She  made  not  one  gesture  that  could  be  taken  ex- 
ception to,  her  self-control  was  perfect,  and  yet  the  picture 
she  made  was,  in  a  subtle  way,  rather  horrible. 

Sandy  glanced  at  his  guests.  The  duchess,  her  lorgnon 
close  to  her  short-sighted  eyes,  was  watching  Maria  Paz 
with  exactly  the  interest  she  would  have  accorded  to  a  dan- 
cer on  the  stage ;  little  Mrs.  Merridew  did  not  count ;  Lady 
Hainault  and  Mary  Wymondham  sat  together,  talking  in 
an  undertone. 

When  the  dancer  saw  Sandy,  a  little  flicker  seemed  to 
stir  her  face  for  a  moment,  and,  after  a  few  seconds  of  her 
extraordinary  flexile  movements,  she  stood  still,  stopped 
the  music  with  a  wave  of  her  hand,  and  walked  towards  the 
men. 

"You  never  saw  me  dance  before,  Sydney,"  she  said, 
with  fiercely  held-back  insolence,  "did  you?" 

Syd  drew  a  deep  breath.    "No,"  he  answered. 

"Well,  I  'ope  you  like  it?" 

Before  he  could  answer,  Mary  Wymondham  came  to  her. 
*'It  was  wonderful,  Maria  Paz,"  she  said,  "quite  wonder- 
ful. I  did  not  know  you  danced.  It  is  very  smart  in 
town,  you  know,  just  now." 

Maria  Paz  did  not  like  Mary  Wymondham,  Sandy  knew, 
but  something  in  the  English  woman's  measured  tact 
touched  the  Spaniard  .  Her  face  softened,  and  she  smiled. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said,  "we  are  not  friends,  but  you 
mean  to  be  kind,  and  I  know  it.  Shall  I  play  for  you  ? ' ' 

She  played  for  nearly  an  hour,  and  so  angelically  that 
everyone  in  the  room  listened  in  a  kind  of  tremor.  She 
played  Beethoven,  and  bits  of  Mozart,  and  a  little  of  Cho- 
pin in  his  simpler  moods.  Then  she  played  Spanish  folk 
songs,  minor,  wailing  things  with  a  pathetic  fall  at  the  end 
of  every  phrase,  and  queer  oriental  changes. 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  381 

"She  is  charming,  Sharrow,"  the  duke  declared,  as  he 
took  his  leave,  "wonderfully  gifted!" 

Maria  Paz  had  for  once  condescended  to  charm,  and  she 
had  succeeded. 

Only  Sandy  and  Mary,  as  he  walked  with  her  down  the 
frozen  path  that  led  through  the  park  to  her  house,  were 
not  pleased. 

"Wasn't  it  awful,  Mary?"  Sandy  asked. 

"Yes,  horrid!  The  dance  itself  was  all  right,  though — 
well,  you  know  what  I  mean;  and  the  frock,  though  it 
made  her  look  like  a  gifted  witch  in  a  fairy-tale — it  was 
all  right,  too.  But " 

They  both  looked  up  through  the  bare  boughs  to  the 
stars  that  shone  in  the  arabesque  of  delicate  branches  and 
twigs.  Sandy  finally  spoke. 

"I  know  what  you  mean;  that  what  was  all  wrong  was 
that  she  did  it  on  purpose  to  annoy  Syd." 

She  nodded. 

"He  was  extremely  angry  at  dinner,  Mary.  I  saw  you 
soothing  him.  And  afterwards — while  she  was  dancing, 
I — I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  the  boy  so  furious.  Hitherto 
his  share  of  the  Family  Temper  has  been  a  small  one." 

They  walked  quickly  on,  for  the  night  was  cold,  and 
talked  little  till  they  stood  in  Mary's  quiet  garden.  Sandy 
had  opened  the  house  door  with  her  latch-key,  and,  as  he 
did  so,  a  deep-voiced,  deliberate  clock  in  the  hall  struck 
twelve.  They  both  counted  the  strokes. 

"How  late!"  Mary  said,  a  little  dreamily,  giving  him 
her  hand.  ' '  I  had  no  idea — when  she  plays  the  piano,  she 
is  a  witch,  an  enchantress " 

"Yes,  Mary — I'd  rather  have  the  boy  die  than  suf- 
fer  " 

She  looked  up  into  his  gaunt  face  on  which  his  own 
sufferings  had  furrowed  such  deep,  firm  lines. 

"He  will  not  suffer,  Sandy." 


382  SHARROW 

"Why  not?     If  he  ever  finds  her  out " 

"But  he  won't.  He  forgot  it  all  to-night  when  she 
played.  And  she  will  always  play  to  him." 

Sandy  sighed.  "I  daresay;  but  my  nerves  are  wrong 
of  late,  and — I  don't  think,"  he  added  "that  I  could  bear 
that:  to  watch  him  suffer " 

Mary  stood  in  her  open  door  listening  to  his  footsteps 
until  they  had  died  away.  Then  she  went  upstairs  to  her 
room,  and  sat  down  in  all  her  bravery  of  attire. 

' '  Mary  Wymondham, ' '  she  said  aloud  to  herself,  ' '  if  you 
are  not  very  careful,  he  will  guess. ' ' 

Then  she  went  to  bed. 


CHAPTER  LXIII 

SENORA  LOPEZ  stayed  only  three  days,  but  Miguel  Fons 
lingered  on. 

He  liked  his  new  quarters,  and,  having  no  misgivings 
on  the  score  of  his  own  charms,  stayed  on  and  on  and  used 
his  tooth-pick  with  the  confidence  and  enthusiasm  com- 
mon to  Spaniards  of  his  class. 

Sandy,  who  had  been  in  Spain,  tried  to  be  properly 
grateful  that  the  fellow  did  not  spit  on  the  floor,  but  this 
was  a  negative  comfort,  and  did  not  greatly  help  him. 

Syd,  charmed  again  by  his  wife's  music,  had  either  for- 
given or  forgotten  the  episode  of  the  orange-colored  frock, 
and  so,  externally  at  least,  peace  reigned  supreme  in  the 
old  house. 

The  winter  was  a  mild  one;  the  hunting  excellent.  Syd 
hunted  three  or  four  times  a  week,  and  while  he  was  away 
Maria  Paz  sat  in  the  Chinese  Room.  She  had  a  nun-like 
instinct ;  she  used  the  Chinese  Room  nearly  as  if  it  were  a 
cloister;  some  days  Sandy  never  set  eyes  on  her  until  din- 
ner, and  on  Fridays  and  certain  fast  days  she  went  without 
dinner,  not  even  coming  to  the  table. 

There  was  no  affectation  in  her  attitude  toward  religion, 
but  it  nevertheless  irritated  Sandy  extremely.  Her  daily 
drives  to  "White  Shirley  he  understood  and  even  liked,  but 
her  fasting  annoyed  him.  He  hated  her  face  when  it  was 
white  and  drawn  with  hunger;  he  disliked  her  quiet  voice 
of  fast  days;  and  his  disquiet  was  increased  a  thousand 
fold  by  his  growing  fear  for  Syd. 

383 


384  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

Why  the  boy  did  not  see  her  as  she  appeared  to  Sandy, 
Sandy  could  not  tell,  but  he  dreaded  what  seemed  to  him 
to  be  the  boy 's  inevitable  day  of  enlightenment  with  a  nerv- 
ous terror  that  to  Mary  was  absurd. 

"I  tell  you,  I  know  Syd  will  never  be  unhappy,"  she 
said  more  than  once. 

"And  I  tell  you  that  I  know  he  would  die,  not  only  of 
grief  but  of  mortification,  if  he  ever  came  to  see  her  as 
she  really  is." 

"As  you  think  she  really  is,  Sandy,"  she  corrected. 
"Why  should  you  be  so  sure?" 

Mary  was  growing  gentler  and  kinder  every  day;  her 
quiet  manner  and  brave  eyes  were  the  greatest  comfort  to 
him  at  a  time  when  he  needed  comfort  more  sorely  than 
he  knew. 

Syd's  happiness  was  indubitable,  but  to  Sandy  it  was  the 
happiness  of  one  who,  all  unawares,  has  pitched  his  tent 
on  the  slope  of  a  volcano. 

Sandy  could  not,  try  as  he  might,  help  watching  for  the 
first  symptoms  of  the  eruption  that  was  to  blow  his 
brother's  joy  to  atoms.  And  of  all  the  weary  watches  in  a 
world  full  of  weary  watches,  the  weariest  is  that  of  the  one 
who  knows  that  a  great  sorrow  awaits  an  unsuspecting 
happy  person. 

Maria  Paz,  meantime,  had  subsided  into  the  dull-colored 
French  frocks  with  a  good  grace ;  she  did  not  dance  again ; 
she  did  nothing  to  disturb  Syd. 

By  the  hour  she  listened  while  Miguel  discoursed  to  her 
in  the  ugly  Catalonian  dialect ;  she  talked  little,  but  listened 
to  her  cousin  with  a  kind  of  hypnotized  pleasure  that  Sandy 
one  day  remarked  upon. 

"What  does  Sefior  Fons  talk  about?"  he  asked.  "It 
must  be  very  interesting. ' ' 

"Interesting?  It  is.  It  is  of  Barcelona  that  he  talks — 
of  the  Rambla  in  the  late  afternoon  when  the  sky  is  red; 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  385 

it  is  of  the  home  of  the  aperitif — when  the  men  go  to  the 
cafes  to  drink — and  the  women  walk  up  and  down  under  the 
big,  ugly  plane-trees  and — wonder  about  things,  those  of  us 
who  do  not  yet  know ;  he  tells  me  of  our  friends ;  of  those 
who  marry  and  those  who  die ;  of  the  theatre,  of  our  dear 
plays  in  our  dear  dialect;  of  our  grave  Senors  and  our 
beautiful  fat  old  ladies;  and  of  the  little  fans  that  wave, 
wave,  wave,  just  as  the  sea  never  ceases,  so  our  little  fans 
never  cease — that  is  home,  Sandy, ' '  she  added  fiercely, ' '  and 
that  is  why  I  like  to  listen  when  my  cousin  Miguel  speaks. ' ' 

Sandy  had  never  sc  greatly  liked  her;  this  phase  of  her 
mind  corresponding  closely  to  that  of  his  which  now  ruled 
his  life;  individual  life  seemed  for  him  to  have  stopped; 
henceforth  Syd's  life  was  to  be  his,  and  because  Syd's  lay 
in  this  woman's  hands,  so  to  a  certain  extent  did  Sandy's. 

And  as  he,  the  well-born  gentleman,  loved  his  estate,  his 
name,  his  house,  so  did  the  common  little  Catalonian  whom 
his  brother  had  married  love  Barcelona,  her  native  town. 

"I  fear  you  must  be  very  homesick  sometimes,  Maria 
Paz,"  he  said,  kindly. 

She  was  sitting  by  the  fire.  It  was  a  bitterly  cold  day 
early  in  February,  and  the  windows  were  whipped  with 
sleet.  Syd  was  in  town,  and  Sandy  had  drifted  into  the 
Chinese  Room  solely  because  he  was  lonely. 

Maria  Paz  sat  bolt  upright  in  a  carved  teak-wood  chair 
that  the  last  lord  but  two  had  brought  back  from  Peking. 

Sandy 's  mind  realized  with  a  kind  of  snap  that  his  sister- 
in-law  did  everything  with  more  intensity  than  did  other 
people;  if  she  loafed,  her  supple  body  was  as  apparently 
boneless  as  that  of  a  young  Spanish  fisherman's — the  most 
lissom  thing  in  the  world — and  if  it  pleased  her  to  sit  up 
straight,  no  stone  Buddha  in  the  whole  of  the  East  could 
be  more  stonily  erect. 

When  Sandy  suggested  that  afternoon  that  she  might 
be  homesick,  she  moved  slightly,  and  looked  at  him. 


386  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

"Homesick?  I?  Do  you  not  know  that  when  I  lived 
in  Barcelona  we  were  poor,  poor,  poor?  We  lived  in  the 
Calle  S.  Sebastiano,  a  street  so  narrow  that  by  stretching 
out  my  hand  I  could  have  stolen  the  food  on  my  opposite 
neighbor's  table!  And  our  clothes — I  made  my  sister's 
clothes — everything — everything  but  her  stockings,  and  we 
lived  on  arroz — rice — and  water  soup.  We  had  meat  on 
Sundays  and  fiestas.  And  all  our  pleasures  we  had  through 
kind  persons.  It  was  Miguel  who  told  us — my  sisters  and 
me — about  the  play.  We  went  once  or  twice  a  year.  And 
in  winter,  we  went  to  bed  early,  to  keep  warm.  And, ' '  she 
broke  off  with  scorn,  "and  now  you  ask  me  if  I  am  not 
lonely!" 

"Yes,"  Sandy  answered,  "I  do.  For  I  know  you  are! 
You  must  miss  the  sun,  and  the  color  and  the  gaiety." 

She  laughed.  "No.  But  I  miss  the  noise.  That  you 
cannot  understand,  but  it  is  true.  I  miss  the  loud  voices, 
the  vivid  words,  the  great  laughs  of  Barcelona.  At  night, 
when  we  went  to  sleep,  my  sisters  and  I,  with  our  window 
open  (only  in  the  summer,  of  course),  we  could  hear  the 
noise  of  the  people,  the  life  of  the  city  below  us — the  clang 
of  the  electric  trams — the  vast  view  of  a  great  Spanish 
city.  Yes,  that  I  miss.  I  like  England  well  enough;  I 
like  the  grandeza  of  being  your  sister.  But  the  quiet  here 
kills  me;  it  is  that.  I  want,"  she  made  an  expressive 
gesture  of  her  little  bony  hands,  ' '  the  noise,  the  noise ! ' ' 

And  Sandy,  for  all  the  strength  of  his  disagreeing  with 
her,  understood.  It  was  his  gift  and  his  curse  at  once,  the 
power  of  seeing  both  sides  of  every  question. 

"You  must  go  to  London  for  a  few  days,"  he  said, 
gently.  "You  can  go  to  a  big  hotel,  and  see  many  people." 

Maria  Paz  shrugged  her  shoulders.  ' '  Bah !  There  is  in 
London  only  a  number  of — carriages  and  wagons,  there  is 
no  noise  of  people.  It  is  that  I  want ;  it  is  that  that  Miguel 
gives  me.  Ah — here  he  comes!  Miguel,"  she  went  on,  as 


SHARROW  387 

Sandy  rose  unobtrusively  as  if  his  sitting  down  at  all  had 
been  merely  a  chance,  ' '  come  and  talk  to  me  of — home. ' ' 

Miguel,  who  was  attired  in  a  bright  brown  suit  and  a  red 
silk  waistcoat,  approached  with  an  offensive  gaiety  all  his 
own. 

"Bien,  ~bien,"  he  cried,  in  his  vile  French,  "I  will  tell 
you,  but  Lord  Sharrow  will  be — ennuye " 

His  smile,  which  was  honestly  meant  to  be  ingratiating, 
gave  Sandy  an  almost  irresistible  longing  to  kick  him. 

' '  I  shall  not  be  ennuye  because — I  am  going  for  a  walk. ' ' 

Miguel  bowed,  and,  taking  from  his  pocket  a  small  book 
of  cigarette  papers,  proceeded  to  roll  one  of  his  cigarettes. 

Maria  Paz,  of  course,  did  not  smoke,  but  she  settled  her- 
self in  her  chair  and  eyed  the  making  of  the  cigarette  with 
pleasure ;  she  loved  the  rank  black  tobacco. 

Sandy  went  out  into  the  chill,  wet  evening,  and  walked, 
two  hours  up  hill  and  down  dale,  as  fast  as  he  could  go. 

He  could  not  turn  his  brother's  wife's  cousin  out  of  his 
house,  yet  the  man  was  making  his  house  unbearable  to 
him. 

Some  day,  however,  he  reflected,  some  day  sooner  or  later, 
Miguel  must  of  necessity  go  back  to  his  clientele  in  Bar- 
celona. It  is  to  be  feared  that  as  Sandy  pounded  along 
over  the  wet  roads  he  invoked  a  plague  of  toothache  on  the 
inhabitants  of  Barcelona. 


CHAPTER  LXIV 

IT  was  raining;  all  day  long  the  bare  trees  had  been 
pearled  with  water,  and  the  clouds  looked  like  wads  of  cot- 
ton wool  that  had  been  used  to  wipe  up  spilt  ink. 

Syd  was  hunting,  and  Sandy  was  at  the  Corner  House 
discussing  the  plans  of  a  cottage  hospital  he  was  building 
at  the  Brocket  Wood  end  of  the  village. 

Dr.  Turner  had  come  in  during  the  afternoon,  and  his 
practical  suggestions  had  been  of  great  use  to  Sandy  and 
Mary.  The  Vicar  had  likewise  come,  and  his  ideas  were 
listened  to  with  deference,  for  he  was  a  good,  simple  soul 
and  Sandy  liked  him. 

Now  Sandy  and  Mary  sat  alone  over  the  fire  and  talked, 
while  Winker,  who  had  added  to  his  father's  racial  peculi- 
arities a  dash  of  Dachshund,  and  was  a  very  strange  looking 
beast,  slept  on  the  rug. 

"When  do  they  go,  Sandy!"  Mary  asked  him,  after  a 
long  silence,  which  they  neither  of  them  noticed. 

' '  On  Tuesday.    Fons  is  going  to-morrow — thank  God ! ' ' 

"Good.  He  is  terrific.  I  hope  he  won't  come  again 
soon." 

"I  think  not.     Syd  dislikes  him." 

"But  Syd  won't  dare  tell  Maria  Paz  that  he  does!" 

Sandy's  almost  white  eyebrows  contracted  a  little,  and 
she  added  hastily:  "I  mean  to  say  he  would  hate  to  hurt 
her." 

"No,  you  don't:  you  mean  that  he  is  afraid  of  her,  and 
he  is." 

388 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  389 

"But,  Sandy,  that  would  be  horrible!" 

"It  is.  When  he  told  her  that  she  must  get  rid  of  old 
Catalina,  she  hardly  spoke  to  him  for  a  week.  He  was 
perfectly  miserable  about  it — it  made  me,"  he  added,  with 
the  sudden  savage  thrust  of  his  jaw  that  made  him  so  ex- 
traordinarily like  his  great-uncle,  "sick." 

Mary  nodded.  She  was  sitting  idly,  her  hands  folded  on 
her  lap. 

"Catalina  was  a  mischief-maker,  and  it  was  necessary  to 
get  rid  of  her ;  I  know  from  Mrs.  Puddif ant  how  she  stirred 
up  quarrels  between  the  Protestant  servants  and  John,  and 
one  of  the  kitchen  maids. ' ' 

"Yes,  a  liar,  too.  However,  she's  gone.  And  so  they're 
off  on  Tuesday.  Poor  Syd!  I  wonder  how  he'll  like  Bar- 
celona. ' ' 

"I  don't  know;  I  believe  it's  an  awful  place  and  the 
Catalonians  are  the  commonest  of  all  Spaniards.  She  is 
a  queer  woman;  her  relations  and  friends  are  a  nuisance, 
and  yet — I  must  say  I  like  her  for  sticking  to  them.  She 
asked  me  to-day  if  she  might  invite  another  cousin,  who  is 
a  priest,  to  Sharrow  during  the  summer." 

Mary  sat  up.    "Oh,  my  goodness,  Sandy!" 

"Yes.  But  of  course  I  said  I  should  be  delighted.  What 
on  earth  could  I  say?" 

"No.  I  should  say  no."  Mary  rose,  and  bending  over 
the  dying  fire  struck  it  into  momentary  brightness.  "I 
would  not  ruin  my  house  by  having  it  infested  with  a  lot  of 
low-class  Spaniards. ' ' 

Sandy  stared,  then  he  burst  out  laughing.  "Well,  upon 
my  word !  That 's  pretty  strong  language  from  a  lady  who 
continually  urges  me  to  patience,  and  who  never  fails 
publicly  to  take  the  chief  Spaniard's  part!" 

"I  don't  care,"  Mary  insisted  stoutly,  "I  mean  every 
word  of  it.  That  man  Miguel  is  too  horrible  for  words. 
I — I  don't  believe  he  is  even  clean — and  now  a  priest  is 


390  S  H  A  R  E  0  W 

coming!  If  you  died,  she'd  make  Syd  turn  the  old  house 
into  an  R.  C.  seminary." 

"If  I  die,  Mary  dear,  Syd  will  find  himself  very  re- 
stricted in  his  powers.  The  entail  is  strict.  No  matter 
how — how  obedient  he  might  become,  he  will  not  be  able  to 
do  anything  as  horrible  as  what  you  suggest.  I — I  have 
seen  how  things  are  going;  her  power  over  him  is  appall- 
ing— and — I  am  making  my  will — I'm  going  up  to  see 
about  it  one  day  next  week.  Ben  Frith  is  to  be,  in  case  of 
my  death,  one  trustee  for — for  Syd's  son — and  Sandy 
Sharrow  the  other.  He's  a  good  sort,  Sandy,  and  will,  I 
know,  agree." 

"I  see.  And — if  you  and  Syd  died  leaving  no  heirs — 
the  other  Sandy  would  come  into  everything?" 

"Yes."  Another  silence  fell.  Sandy  was  glad  that 
he  had  spoken ;  for  some  weeks  he  had  wanted  to  take  Mary 
into  his  confidence  regarding  Syd's  subjection  to  Maria 
Paz*  will,  but  he  had  hated  to  mention  his  brother's  weak- 
ness. 

Now  it  was  done  and  his  mind  was  easier. 

Mary  understood;  she  would  never  tell  any  one  of  his 
precautions  and  she  would  not  love  poor  Syd  the  less  for 
his  weakness. 

The  rain  pattered  softly  against  the  windows;  the  fire 
died  down  again ;  and  the  scraping  of  the  bough  of  a  big 
cedar  against  an  angle  of  the  roof  over  the  drawing-room 
told  them  that  the  wind  had  come  up. 

"I  must  be  going,"  Sandy  said  lazily,  his  head  leaning 
against  the  back  of  his  chair.  "It  must  be  nearly  seven." 

But  he  did  not  move.  They  were  both  of  them  lapped  in 
the  luxury  of  idleness  after  hard  work. 

"I  like  that  frock,  Mary,"  he  went  on,  presently.  "Blue 
is  such  a  nice  color." 

She  made  a  little  murmuring  sound  of  gratified  agree- 
ment, but  did  not  speak. 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  391 

It  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  loved  him  all  her  life. 

Again  the  cedar  bough  knocked  softly  against  the  roof; 
the  rain  came  down  harder. 

"Why  don't  you  stay  and  dine  with  me?" 

"Wish  I  could,  but  as  it's  that  beast's  last  evening — 
hallo!  what's  that?" 

The  garden  gate  opened  and  closed  with  a  bang,  fol- 
lowed by  the  sound  of  footsteps. 

Mary's  heart  gave  a  great  throb.  It  was  thus  that 
Sandy's  feet  had  sounded  when  he  came  to  tell  her  of 
Syd's  marriage. 

She  half  rose,  and  at  the  same  instant  she  and  Sandy 
both  turned  to  the  nearer  window.  The  footsteps  broke  into 
a  run. 

Hatless,  white,  wild-looking,  his  hands  beating  feebly 
against  the  pane,  Miguel  Fons  stood  staring  into  the  room, 
his  mouth  opening  and  shutting  in  apparent  wordlessness. 
With  one  stride  Sandy  was  at  the  window,  and  opened  it. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  asked  sternly. 

"It's — it's "  Miguel's  tongue  ran  rapidly  across  his 

dry,  loosely-opened  lips,  and  his  yellow-tipped  fingers 
clutched  upward  in  the  firelight. 

"What  is  it?"  Mary  stood  by  Sandy. 

"It's— it's— Seed— 'e  is  dead!" 

Sandy  drew  back  a  step. 

Mary  stared  a  moment,  and  then  said  angrily:  ."Non- 
sense ! — it 's  impossible.  Don 't  stand  there  like  a  drivelling 
idiot — tell  us  at  once,  what  has  happened." 

Then  Miguel  burst  into  tears,  his  hands  pressed  first 
against  his  eyes,  then  together. 

"  It  is  true, ' '  he  wailed.  ' '  They  'ave  brought  'im  'ome — 
'is —  'is  'ead  is  all — s-smashed  to  pieces ! ' ' 


CHAPTER  LXV 

THE  weeks  that  followed  were  the  most  tragic  of  Mary 
Wymondham's  life,  but  if  she  had  been  forced  to  lose  her 
memory  of  her  whole  life  save  that  of  a  few  weeks,  she 
would  have  chosen  to  keep  clear  in  her  mind  those  dreadful 
ones  immediately  following  Syd's  death. 

Things  that  happened  later  might  seem  to  some  women 
to  be  worthier  of  the  value  she  silently  set  on  those  stormy 
spring  days ;  but  to  her  the  beauty  and  importance  of  her 
whole  life  dwindled  to  nothing  in  comparison  with  them. 

The  horror  of  the  night  of  the  accident,  dread  and  blight- 
ing though  it  was,  held  for  her  a  secret  joy;  she  it  was 
to  whom  Sandy  turned ;  she  it  was  who  sat  with  him  by  the 
bed  where  lay  that  thing,  its  face  covered  with  a  cloth, 
that  only  a  few  hours  before  had  been  his  brother  and  the 
hope  of  his  whole  existence. 

''Don't  leave  us  alone,  Mary,"  Sandy  had  said  to  her, 
as  they  reached  the  house  after  a  breathless  run  through 
the  night.  "Stay  with  me." 

And  she  stayed. 

Only  while  Turner  and  Sandy  were  in  the  library  to- 
gether did  she  see  anyone  but  him,  and  then  she  was  so 
short  and  sharp  with  Maria  Paz,  who  was  in  hysterics,  that 
to  the  end  of  her  days  the  Spanish  woman  never  forgave 
her. 

"You  mustn't  scream,"  Mary  said,  her  large  strong 
hand  holding  Maria  Paz  firmly  down  on  the  sofa  where 
she  had  flung  herself,  and  where  she  lay  twisting  and  writh- 
ing like  an  epileptic.  "You  must  be  quiet.  Sandy  will 
hear  you." 

392 


SHARROW  393 

Maria  Paz  burst  into  a  flood  of  Spanish  that  sounded  too 
like  vituperation  greatly  to  impress  Mary ;  but  the  screams, 
which  were  of  a  wailing,  shrill  quality  almost  eastern  in 
their  regularity,  ceased  at  once. 

Then  Mary  sought  Miguel. 

He  stood  in  the  Chinese  Room  by  the  fire,  and  as  she 
entered  he  turned,  his  tobacco-box  in  his  hand,  a  rectangu- 
lar bit  of  white  paper  caught  by  its  extreme  edge  in  his 
lips. 

He  had  gone  a  strange  grayish-yellow  color,  and  his  red 
lips  writhed  a  little,  the  cigarette  paper  trembling  between 
them. 

"  'Ow  is  she?"  he  asked. 

Mary  looked  at  him.  He  was  very  repulsive  to  her, 
and  she  had  come  to  send  him  away,  but  she  was  sorry  for 
him,  he  was  so  disorganized,  his  black,  glossy  eyes  held 
such  a  look  of  terror. 

"Maria  Paz?"  she  returned,  kindly  enough.  "She  is 
quite  all  right." 

Her  ears  were  waiting  for  the  sound  of  the  library  door, 
which  sound  would  be  the  signal  for  her  to  return  to 
Sandy.  She  sat  down,  and,  looking  up  at  the  Spaniard,  she 
began  her  task. 

"Seiior  Fons,"  she  said,  "I  have  only  a  moment  in 
which  to  talk  to  you,  and  a  rather  unpleasant  thing  to  say. 
So  I  will  say  it  at  once." 

He  lit  his  beautifully  rolled  cigarette,  and  drew  a  deep 
puff  of  the  acrid  smoke  of  his  contraband  tobacco. 

"Yes?" 

' '  I  think — that  now  that  this  terrible  thing  has  happened 
and  Lord  Sharrow  is  in  such  deep  mourning,  it  would  be 
better  if — there  were  no  guests  in  the  house." 

' '  You  mean  you  wish  me  to  go  ?"  His  voice  was  level,  his 
eyes  half  closed. 

' '  Yes.    Do  you  not  think  it  would  be  better  ? ' ' 


394  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

He  smoked  in  silence  for  a  moment,  and  then  answered 
her  with  the  dignity  born  even  in  underbred  Spaniards. 

"Perhaps — you  may  be  right,  Miss  Wymondham.  I 
will  tell  my  cousin  your  words. ' ' 

''Please  do  not  do  that.  Maria  Paz  is  in  great  grief, 
and " 

"And  I  am  her  only  relation  here;  the  only  one  of  her 
own  people.  I  cannot  desert  her  unless  she  wishes  me  to 
go." 

Mary  felt  the  strength  of  his  argument,  and  knew  that 
there  was  only  one  way  to  smash  it. 

"You  forget.  It  is  not  your  cousin's  house.  It  is  Lord 
Sharrow's  house  and  he,  I  know,  would  prefer  to  be  alone 
in  it  just  now." 

The  cigarette  that  was  being  rolled  between  Miguel's 
lean  fingers  was  quiet  for  a  moment. 

"  'E  asked  you  to  tell  me  to  go?" 

She  knew  that  if  she  said  yes,  he  would  go  at  once.  She 
•understood  that,  strange  as  his  code  was,  it  yet  was  a  code, 
and  that  he  would  follow  it. 

"No,"  she  answered,  "he  did  not  ask  me,  but  I  have 
known  him  all  my  life — ever  since  I  was  a  little  girl,  and  I 
know  what  he  likes." 

' '  You  mean  that  he  does  not  like  me  ? " 

"I  did  not  mean  that,  but  I  believe  it.  I  do  not  think 
he  likes  you  very  much. ' ' 

The  Spaniard  bowed.  "He  has  been  kind  to  me.  And 
I  believe  that  you  tell  the  truth.  So  I  will  go.  But  my 
poor  cousin  must  not  be  alone  without  any  of  her  own  peo- 
ple pour  la  consoler." 

"I  think  it  would  be  fitting  if  her  father  came." 

"No.  But  this  does  not  interest  you,  Miss  Wymond- 
ham. Good-by." 

He  held  out  his  hand,  and  it  was  clammy  and  cold  like 
a  sick  monkey's.  In  his  eyes  she  read  something  akin  to 


SHARROW  395 

relief.  He  was  glad  to  go;  the  horror  of  the  dead  man 
upstairs  was  too  much  for  him.  He  really  felt  that  he 
ought  to  stand  by  his  cousin  in  her  affliction,  but  every 
nerve  in  him  shrieked  to  get  away. 

Mary  understood.  She  ordered  a  closed  carriage  to  take 
him  to  the  station,  knowing  the  southerner's  dread  of  night 
air,  and  it  was  she  who  bade  him  finally  good-by,  and 
promised  to  write  to  him  in  London,  to  tell  him  about  the 
funeral. 

When  he  had  gone,  she  sat  for  hours  beside  poor  Syd's 
bed,  Sandy  by  her,  neither  of  them  speaking. 

She  never  forgot  the  hours  as  they  passed  away  into 
eternity:  Sandy's  face,  white,  grim,  stamped  by  a  look 
of  endurance  as  far  removed  from  resignation  as  it  was 
from  resentment;  the  cheery  ticking  of  Syd's  little  travel- 
ling clock  on  his  dressing-table. 

The  horror  of  the  whole  thing  sank  deep  into  her  soul 
and  she  never  forgot ;  but  she  loved  Sandy,  and  now  in  his 
hour  of  need  he  had  turned  to  her  as  naturally  as  a  child 
turns  to  its  mother,  and  to  the  lonely  woman  this  was  of 
an  inexpressible  sweetness. 

When  dawn  came,  she  persuaded  Sandy  to  drink  some 
tea,  which  womanish  remedy  he  took  without  much  diffi- 
culty, seeming  to  find  a  certain  comfort  in  its  warmth. 

She  told  him  that  Miguel  Fons  had  gone,  and  he  accepted 
the  news  with  an  indifferent  nod,  but  she  knew  that  he  was 
glad. 

The  next  day  the  rain  began,  the  rain  that  in  Sandy's 
and  Mary's  minds  was  forever  to  be  associated  with  that 
terrible  time. 

It  rained  steadily,  almost  without  an  hour's  relief,  for 
quite  three  weeks,  and  when,  at  length,  the  heavy  clouds 
parted  sullenly,  as  if  loth  to  do  so,  and  a  pale  filmy  blue 
appeared,  poor  Syd  had  been  over  a  fortnight  in  his  grave, 
the  turf  on  it  had  turned  to  a  vivid  emerald,  and  all  the 


396  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

letters  and  telegrams  relative  to  the  disaster  had  been  an- 
swered. The  world  went  on  just  as  before;  another  young 
man  was  dead;  people  forgot  to  exclaim  at  the  pity  of  it. 
Syd  was  dead,  and  there  was  an  end  of  him  and  of  the 
question. 

And  the  little  path  behind  the  tall  hedge  was  worn  with 
Sandy's  feet  as  he  went  to  and  from  Mary's  house. 

He  was  a  little  older-looking,  a  little  thinner,  a  little 
more  silent,  and  to  the  average  person  of  his  acquaintance 
that  was  all  the  change  the  catastrophe  had  wrought  in  him. 
Only  Mary  knew  that  some  spring  within  him  had  snapped ; 
that  he  could  never  again  be  what  he  had  been  even  since 
his  return  home. 

Miguel  had  come  to  the  funeral,  and  left  immediately 
after  in  a  manner  most  correct. 

He  had  seen  Maria  Paz  only  once  alons,  and  she  appar- 
ently had  not  suggested  his  staying  on. 

She,  too,  was  absolutely  correct.  She  wore  very  deep 
mourning  and  a  thick  lace  mantilla  hid  her  hair  when  she 
was  in  the  house.  Every  day  she  went  to  Mass,  and  every 
afternoon  now  she  drove  over  to  White  Shirley  to  Vespers. 

Her  piety  had  won  favor  for  her  in  the  eyes  of  the  ten- 
ants and  servants.  Her  small  yellow  face  was  wan,  and 
around  her  eyes  were  black  sunken  circles.  Sandy  told 
Mary  that  he  was  surprised  at  the  force  of  her  grief.  ' '  She 
cared  more  than  I  knew,"  he  said. 

Mary  only  nodded.  There  seemed  something  in  the  at- 
mosphere that  she  could  not  understand.  She  distrusted 
something,  she  could  not  say  what  it  was. 

When  Don  Antonio  came,  Mary  by  chance  was  the  one 
who  met  him. 

She  was  walking  home  from  church  one  Sunday  after- 
noon when  she  saw,  coming  towards  her  in  the  rain,  a  tall 
figure  with  kilted  skirts  and  a  long  full  cloak. 

At  first  she  thought  it  was  a  woman,  but  as  she  came 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  397 

closer,  she  saw  that  it  was  a  priest  dressed  in  the  manner 
of  a  Spanish  country  cure. 

The  brim  of  his  silk  felt  hat  was  turned  up  at  the  sides 
flat  against  the  low  crown,  his  cloak  was  very  long  and 
very  full,  and  under  his  tucked  up  soutane  she  caught  a 
glimpse  of  gray  woolen  trousers.  His  steel  shoe-buckles 
glistened  in  the  glancing  light  of  a  lantern  he  carried. 

It  was  a  strange  figure  to  meet  in  an  English  country 
road,  and  Mary  knew  instantly,  even  before  he  spoke,  that 
he  was  in  some  way  linked  with  Maria  Paz. 

He  greeted  her  as  he  passed,  in  the  rural  Spanish  way, 
and  she  went  on  home,  expectant  of  news  from  Sandy.  In 
this  she  was  not  disappointed. 

Sandy  sat  in  his  study  half  an  hour  later  when  old 
Waters  announced  to  him  that  a  gentleman  had  come  to  see 
Mrs.  Sharrow,  and  had  also  asked  for  his  lordship. 

"It's  a — a  priest,  my  lord,  I  fancy,"  the  butler  added, 
"a — a  foreigner,  sir." 

Sandy  rose.  He  had  been  writing  cheques  to  settle  some 
small  outstanding  accounts  of  Syd's  and  his  face  was  grim 
with  misery. 

"I'll  come  in  at  once,  where  are  they?  In  the  Yellow 
Dra  wing-Room?" 

"No,  my  lord,  in  the  Chinese  Room." 

Don  Antonio  sat  by  the  fire,  his  large  muddy  shoes 
steaming  on  the  fender.  His  hair,  which  was  intensely 
black,  and  close  cropped,  seemed  to  fit  down  over  his  brow 
like  a  tight  cap. 

He  rose  when  Sandy  entered,  and  Maria  Paz  introduced 
him  as  her  uncle,  Don  Antonio  Vila. 

The  priest's  English  was  practically  non-existent,  and 
his  manner  unconciliatory  in  the  extreme.  In  halting  Eng- 
lish and  a  little  French  he  explained  to  Sandy  that  he  re- 
garded Syd  's  death  as  a  direct  sign  from  Heaven  that  God 
was  angry  with  Maria  Paz  for  having  married  a  heretic. 


398  SHARROW 

"I  weep  for  his  soul,"  he  added,  his  long,  unshaven 
upper  lip  pressing  heavily  on  the  under  one,  which  was  a 
little  pendulous  and  looked  moist,  ' '  but  it  is  a  punishment 
for  my  niece." 

"Will  you  have  some  tea?"  Sandy  asked  him,  and 
Maria  Paz  explained  that  her  uncle  was  not  a  young  man, 
and  as,  moreover,  he  suffered  from  rheumatism,  she 
had  taken  the  liberty  of  asking  him  to  spend  the  night  at 
Sharrow. 

Sandy  bowed. 

It  really  seemed  to  him  to  matter  extremely  little  who 
spent  the  night  at  Sharrow,  and  he  was  too  sorry  for  his 
sister-in-law  to  resent  anything  that  she  might  find  comfort 
in  doing. 

So  Don  Antonio  spent  the  night  in  the  room  that  had 
been  Miguel 's,  and  he  spent  thirty  other  nights  in  the  same 
room. 

Maria  Paz  seemed  to  like  having  him  there,  and  Sandy's 
indifference  to  everything  was  too  deep  to  be  touched  by 
such  a  trifle. 

The  man  was  quiet,  he  never  tried  to  talk  to  his  host, 
he  gave  no  trouble  to  anyone.  He  was  more  like  a  tall 
black  ghost  than  anything  else. 

"At  least,"  Sandy  said  one  day  to  Mary,  who  was 
protesting  with  him  for  allowing  the  priest  a  foothold 
in  the  house,  "he  is  better  than  Miguel.  He  doesn't  spit 
any  more  than  Miguel,  and  he  does  not  use  scent  on  his 
hair." 

So  the  spring  wore  away,  wearily  enough,  and  the  sweet 
sunny  days  were  an  added  pain,  like  the  throb  in  a  wound, 
to  Sandy  in  his  loneliness.  Every  day  he  saw  Mary,  some- 
times even  twice  in  a  day,  and  her  kindness  and  under- 
standing gentleness  were  his  only  comfort. 

They  talked  together,  and  walked,  but  in  one  matter 
she  could  not  move  him;  he  had  stopped  all  the  work  he 


SHARKOW  401 

walked  slowly,  with  a  kind  of  pomp,  every  inch  c  Spanish 
parocco. 

1 '  God 's  ways, ' '  he  was  saying,  as  he  and  his  host  turned 
for  the  twentieth  time  by  a  group  of  dusty  oleanders,  ' '  are 
beyond  our  understanding.  It  is,  of  course,  to  you  incom- 
prehensible why  He  should  have  removed  your  brother." 

Sandy  made  no  reply.  For  some  days  the  priest  had 
been  trying  to  induce  him  to  talk  about  Syd,  and  this, 
courteous  though  he  was  forcing  himself  to  be  to  the  in- 
truder, he  would  not  do. 

The  old  man  was  far  more  pervasive  and  dangerous  than 
the  frankly  vulgar  Miguel,  for,  although  he  was  nearly  a 
peasant,  he  was  a  reader,  and  had  educated  himself.  He 
had  made  friends  with  the  servants,  many  of  whom  seemed 
really  to  like  him,  and  Sandy  knew  from  Mrs.  Puddif  ant 's 
demeanor  that  she  suspected  him  of  proselytizing. 

He  had,  Sandy  knew,  some  definite  reason  for  trying  to 
lead  the  conversation  to  Syd,  but  the  Englishman  had  made 
up  his  mind  to  keep  his  poor  brother's  name  as  much  out 
of  the  Spaniard's  mouth  as  possible. 

So,  looking  up  at  the  clouds  which  were  now  rapidly  as- 
suming an  ominous  saffron  hue,  Sandy  was  silent. 

Don  Antonio  glanced  at  him  sharply.  "To  you,  no 
doubt,"  he  went  on  slowly,  "it  seems  cruel  that  your 
brother " 

' '  I  beg  your  pardon — I  do  not  wish  to  be  rude,  Don  An- 
tonio, but  I  cannot  possibly  discuss  my  brother's  death  with 
you." 

The  Spaniard  had  the  thick,  slightly  pock-marked  skin 
so  common  in  his  country ;  underneath  its  opaqueness  there 
now  crept  in  a  faint  dark  red  flush. 

"I  see."  He  bowed  suavely  as  he  spoke,  but  the  flush 
remained.  "I — I  had,  however,  a  reason  for  wishing  to 
bring  your  mind  to  what  you  will  forgive  me  for  describ- 
ing as  a  more  normal  state." 


402  SHARROW 

Sandy  looked  at  him  with  mild  surprise. 

"A  reason?" 

"Yes." 

For  a  few  minutes  they  walked  on  in  silence,  and  then, 
as  they  came  into  full  view  of  the  house,  the  priest  held  up 
one  of  his  white  fat  hands  in  a  way  that  claimed  his  host 's 
attention. 

' '  There  is  your  house, ' '  he  said  in  his  curious,  incorrect, 
but  perfectly  understandable  French.  "It  is  a  most  beau- 
tiful house;  you  are  a  very  rich  man — a  millionaire,  I 
daresay. ' ' 

' '  I  suppose  I  am, ' '  Sandy  admitted  reluctantly, ' '  but — ' ' 

"Wait!  Your  home  is  of  the  oldest.  You  are  what  we 
in  Spain  would  call  a  Grandee — am  I  not  right  ? ' ' 

Sandy's  idea  of  a  Grandee  of  Spain  formed  a  picture 
so  remarkably  unlike  his  own  raw-boned,  red-headed  self 
that,  but  for  the  deep  sadness  which  lay  on  his  soul,  as  the 
clouds  lie  against  the  mirth  of  a  crimson  sky,  he  would 
have  laughed  aloud.  As  it  was,  he  smiled,  a  melancholy 
smile  that  in  the  bright  sunlight  plainly  showed  how  much 
deeper  the  events  of  the  past  months  had  furrowed  the  lines 
in  his  face. 

"You  are  then,  in  effect,"  pursued  the  priest,  his  dark 
eyes  fixed  on  his  companion's  face,  "a  man  of  much  im- 
portance. ' ' 

"I  daresay  you  think  so — it  is  very  kind  of  you," 
murmured  Sandy,  "but  still  I  don't  see  what " 

Whatever  the  faults  of  Don  Antonio  might  have  been, 
servility  was  not  one  of  them.  He  made  a  stern  gesture, 
frowned,  and  continued,  as  if  disdaining  to  regard  such 
an  interruption :  "  If  you  will  have  a  little  patience  I  will 
explain,  Lord  Sharrow." 

Lord  Sharrow  bowed.  After  all,  the  man  was  old,  he  was 
his  guest,  and  he  was  Syd's  uncle  by  marriage.  For  these 
reasons,  then,  Sandy  owed  him  courtesy. 


SHAKROW  403 

The  wind  had  risen  now,  a  hot  wind  that  in  stirring  the 
trees  dislodged  little  clouds  of  dust  that  had  been  resting 
on  their  leaves ;  the  western  sky  was  a  'mass  of  scarlet  and 
gold,  and  against  its  glories  of  color  the  storm  clouds 
loomed  blacker  and  blacker. 

The  storm  was  very  near.  Syd  had  loved  what  he  called 
a  rattling  good  storm,  and  the  words,  suddenly  floating 
into  Sandy's  mind,  hurt  him  like  the  turning  of  a  knife  in 
a  wound. 

He  was  not  given  to  self  pity,  but  for  a  moment  the 
tragedy  of  his  life  seemed  to  him  to  blot  out  the  world. 

Maria  Paz,  who  loathed  the  dusk,  had  turned  on  the  light 
in  the  Chinese  Room,  which  faced  that  way.  Sandy,  gazing 
at  the  old  house,  saw  the  ruddy  windows,  and  knew  that 
the  Spanish  woman  was  there  in  the  room  his  brother  had 
loved.  Then  another  light  flashed  out  into  the  golden 
evening  and  another. 

It  was  almost  day  out  of  doors,  but  in  the  house  evening 
had  come ;  the  hour  when  lights  are  lit  and  poor  men  hurry 
home  to  their  wives,  and  children's  faces  are  given  a  rub 
by  the  maternal  apron  to  smarten  them  up  for  Daddy's 
coming;  the  hour  when  workers  enter  into  their  daily 
heritage  of  rest  after  labor,  that  rest  which  people  who 
never  work  can  never  know;  the  hour  when  in  churches 
quiet  people  pray  at  Vespers;  the  hour  when  cows  walk 
in  the  stately  measure  of  stupidity  back  to  the  farm;  the 
hour  when  factories  release  their  crowds  of  girls  anxious 
for  life ;  the  hour  when  trout  go  to  sleep ;  the  hour  when 
youth  awakes  and  mischief  stalks  abroad ;  to  many  people, 
not  thinkers,  no  doubt,  but  imaginers,  the  best  and  fruit- 
fullest  hour  of  the  twenty-four. 

And  there  was  Sharrow,  after  the  somnolent  afternoon, 
waking  up,  preparing  for  the  evening.  Sandy  stood  still, 
staring  at  it.  It  was  his  house,  the  house  that  he  had  for 
so  long  adored,  the  house  that  formerly  had  meant  to  him 


404  SHARROW 

the  romance  of  the  world.  When  that  had  ceased  to  be, 
when  he  returned  to  it,  a  broken,  world-hurt  man,  it  still 
contained  much,  for  its  old  walls  were  to  shelter  Syd — 
Syd  then  had  become  his  romance. 

Now  Syd  had  gone,  and  only  the  walls  remained,  and 
they  seemed  to  him  an  empty  shell.  He  cared,  it  seemed 
to  him,  very  little  for  it.  With  Syd  all  the  old  magic  had 
gone. 

He  had  talked  to  no  one,  not  even  to  Mary,  of  what  he 
felt  about  Syd's  death,  but  he  himself  knew.  He  knew 
quite  well  that  Syd's  death  meant  to  him  a  kind  of  passive 
despair.  There  had  been  not  one  hour  since  that  April 
evening  when  Miguel  brought  the  news,  when  he,  Sandy, 
would  not  have  died,  could  he  have  been  given  the  choice. 

Syd  was  gone ;  his  life  was  over ;  what  might  come  hence- 
forth was  something  extraneous,  not  his  fault,  not  his  merit . 
His  life  was  over,  and  his  duties  from  now  onward  seemed 
to  him  to  be  of  the  passive  order. 

He  had  sat  all  through  a  long  night  by  the  dead  boy. 
Syd,  now,  knew;  he  knew,  it  seemed  to  Sandy,  all  those 
things  that  Sandy  had  missed.  Syd  was  to  die  not  only  in 
his  own  young  frame,  but  in  that  he  was  never  to  have  a 
son.  No  little  boy  of  Syd's  was  going  to  ride  around  Shar- 
row  on  a  pony,  and  learn  to  know  the  people  and  the  place. 
Sandy  had  planned  these  things,  and  they  had  turned  to 
naught.  Syd  and  Syd's  seed  were  to  be  nothing.  God,  or 
the  Prime  Factor,  had  willed  it  so,  and  there  was  no  appeal. 

Sandy  made  no  appeal,  conscious  or  unconscious.  To  him, 
things  were;  God  was;  Fatality  was.  And  now,  while  he 
awaited,  in  the  great  hush  of  the  coming  storm,  the  old 
priest's  words,  he  felt  again,  and  of  late  he  had  many  times 
felt,  the  weight  of  the  unavoidable.  What  was  to  come,  was 
to  come,  and  not  his  to  protest. 

"My  son,"  Don  Antonio's  voice  was  heavy  with  solem- 
nity, "your  brother  is  dead;  he  will  have  no  son." 


S  H  A  E  E  0  W  405 

Sandy  nodded,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  yellow  spots  of  light 
that  meant  to  his  imagination  the  room  where  Maria  Paz 
was  sitting;  he  could  see  her,  her  strange  withdrawn  look, 
her  extraordinary  passivity  of  expression. 

There  she  was,  the  woman  who  was  to  have  carried  on  his 
race ;  the  woman  whom  a  bad-tempered  horse  had  thwarted 
in  her  life-work.  Sandy  knew  the  beautiful  patience  of 
Latin  women  in  the  matter  of  child-bearing.  He  knew  that 
the  protests  of  Protestant  women  again  the  illness,  the  suf- 
fering of  child-raising,  was  not  theirs ;  that  they  looked  on 
each  child,  if  not  in  the  ideal  way,  as  a  gift,  then  at  least 
as  a  duty,  and  that  these  duties  they  endured  with  dignity 
and  grace. 

Maria  Paz,  he  knefw,  would  have  borne  his  brother  a 
round  dozen  of  sons  without  a  word  of  reproach.  And  now 
there  was  no  one.  Syd  was  dead,  the  woman  was  to  bear 
no  Sharrows.  And  he,  in  his  blundering,  tender,  masculine 
way,  pitied  her. 

The  clouds,  now  black,  were  luminous  with  sudden  light- 
ning as  the  two  men  again  approached  the  house. 

"Poor  soul!"  he  was  thinking. 

Then  on  his  dreaming  ears  fell  the  old  priest's  words, 
that  at  first  failed  to  penetrate  to  his  mind,  but  words 
that,  when  they  did  reach  his  brain,  seemed  for  a  moment  to 
stop  its  working. 

"My  son,  you  must  marry;  your  family  must  not  be 
allowed  to  die  out.  You  must  seek  a  worthy  wife,  and  you 
must  have  a  son." 


CHAPTER  LXVII 

AFTER  the  storm  that  night  there  followed  a  calm  as 
beautiful  as  dawn.  In  a  gentle  heaven  shone  stars  so  lovely 
as  to  seem  comprehensible  to  the  least  imaginative  of  men. 

And  Sandy  Sharrow,  in  his  great  house,  felt  to  the  least 
fibre  of  his  being  the  wonder  of  this  calm. 

Shortly  after  twelve,  he  lighted  a  candle  and,  with  it 
in  his  hand,  went  all  over  his  house. 

Electric  light  could  not  have  supplemented  the  amazing 
sweetness  of  the  feeling  that  pervaded  him,  whereas  the 
little  yellow  flicker  of  the  candle  seemed  to  help  him  to 
understand. 

He  went  first  to  the  room  where  he  had  first  seen  his 
great-uncle,  years  and  years  before,  the  old  white-paneled 
room  with  the  little  dark  paintings  sunk  into  the  panelling. 
He  recalled  the  old  man  with  his  sinister  face,  sitting  by 
the  fire ;  he  seemed  once  more  to  hear  his  voice.  He  remem- 
bered the  words  the  old  man  had  uttered,  and  his  own  half 
angry  awe  as  he  looked  around  the  room. 

That  was  his  first  station. 

Then  he  went  down  the  shallow  stairs,  where  each  step 
was  worn  to  a  gentle  hollow,  to  the  Small  Hall  where  had 
taken  place  the  famous  Sharrow-Burton  Battle.  He  re- 
membered the  old  lord's  dramatic  entrance,  his  amused 
laugh,  his  words. 

He  then  went  to  visit  the  Great  Hall,  the  Chinese  Room, 
where  the  old  man  had  so  bitterly  refused  to  listen  to  his 
love  story;  to  his  own  room  in  the  tower;  to  the  vast,  dusky, 
mysterious  others;  to  the  courtyard. 

406 


SHAKROW  407 

In  the  courtyard,  towards  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
the  great  torches  still  nickered  in  the  iron  rings. 

Sandy  remembered  the  night  he  had  arrived;  the  first 
invasion  of  his  boyish  spirit,  of  the  strange,  enveloping 
Feeling;  how  the  torchlight  had  flickered  and  leapt  until 
the  old  worn  coat-of-arms  with  its  grimacing  griffin  had 
blazed  in  the  surrounding  gloom. 

He  recalled,  too,  the  evening  when  Maggie  Penrose  had 
waylaid  him  on  this  very  spot,  and  influenced  him  to  be 
gentle  with  his  old  uncle ;  how  the  pretty,  blue-eyed  gover- 
ness had  made  him  pause,  and  brought  him  back. 

As  he  wandered  about  the  silent  house  with  his  draught- 
blown  candle,  Lord  Sharrow  remembered  many  things,  and 
of  these  his  feeling  for  his  little  brother's  governess  was 
not  the  least  distinct. 

He  had,  he  knew,  never  loved  her,  but  she  had  been  kind 
to  him,  and  he  seemed  to  have  known  from  the  very  begin- 
ning of  things  that  she  loved  him. 

The  poor  Sandy  of  nearly  four-and-thirty,  looking  back 
at  the  Sandy  of  twenty-three,  did  not  wonder  over  much 
at  what  he  had  done. 

No  man,  it  seemed  to  him,  could  do  without  love.  And 
Viola 's  love  being  what  it  was,  weak  and  worthless,  Mag- 
gie Penrose,  even  now  when  he  knew  her  to  have  been  an 
intriguer  and  a  liar,  appeared  to  him  to  have  been  of  better 
fibre,  of  stronger  stuff.  He  did  not,  that  long  night 
through,  knowing  that  he  by  no  possibility  could  ever  for- 
give Maggie  for  fooling  him,  blame  that  other  Sandy,  that 
disappointed,  heartbroken  boy,  for  taking  what  he  could 
get — Maggie's  love. 

He  was  bitter,  disillusioned,  unhappy,  but  he  was  truth- 
ful still,  and  the  mature  man  paid  to  the  unhappy  boy  the 
tribute  of  acknowledging  that,  were  history  to  repeat  itself, 
he  would  again  seize  the  tangible,  long-suffering,  under- 
standing love  of  the  governess  as  some  kind  of  compensa- 


408  SHARROW 

tion  for  the  romantic,  but  not  weather-proof  affection  of 
poor  little  Viola. 

That  night  Lord  Sharrow  faced  his  past  and  his  future. 
No  man  has  yet  justly  and  impartially  faced  his  present. 

Sandy  knew  that  he  had  given  his  idealistic  boy's  love 
to  poor,  weak,  little  Viola  Wymondham ;  that  he  had  given 
Maggie  Penrose,  in  return  for  a  love  strong  enough  to  lead 
her  very  close  to  criminal  things,  a  merely  grateful  mix- 
ture of  physical  attraction  and  despair. 

He  knew  that  in  the  succeeding  years  Maggie  had  poured 
on  his  unworthy  head  a  love  that,  though  rooted  in  dis- 
honor, was  yet  worth  a  thousand  times  what  his  feeling  for 
her  was  worth.  He  appreciated  her  self-abnegation,  her 
patience,  her  amazing  long-suffering. 

He  knew  that  he  had  been  unfaithful,  selfish,  and  cruel 
in  his  indifference  to  her.  Yet,  because  his  nature  was  fun- 
damentally just,  he  did  not  exaggerate  his  faults  nor  her 
virtues. 

She  had  won  him  by  fraud,  but  she  had  won  him,  in  a 
way,  and  he  knew  the  game,  pitiful  as  it  was,  had  been  to 
her  well  worth  the  candle. 

And  Viola? 

For  years  Viola  had  been  to  him  a  phantom  he  dared 
not  face. 

That  night,  in  the  silence  of  his  old  house,  he  faced  it, 
and  he  knew. 

He  knew  that  the  Viola  he  knew  had  been  to  a  great 
extent  a  creation  of  his  own  imagination.  Behind  her 
lovely  young  face  he  had  built  an  edifice  of  mental  and 
moral  values  of  which  the  poor  little  thing  had  never  even 
dreamed.  The  fault  had  largely  been  his.  With  groans  of 
sheer  sorrow,  quite  apart  from  repentance,  he  drew  a  pic- 
ture of  that  evening  in  Guelph  Square  when  he  had  come 
down  to  the  drawing-room  drunk,  and  frightened  her  out 
of  her  wits. 


SHARROW  409 

He  regretted,  with  the  real  regret  of  a  mature  man 
who  has  lived  and  suffered,  the  silly  deed  of  the  boy  he  used 
to  be.  Most  men  have  known  this  regret  and  its  bitterness. 

Then,  sitting  at  dawn  in  the  vast  waste  of  the  Yellow 
Drawing-room,  a  room  he  hated,  Sandy  faced  his  future. 

Syd,  the  motive  power  of  his  recent  new  life,  was  dead. 

If  Syd  was  with  God,  or  if  he  were  a  lump  of  reverting 
clay,  he  did  not  know  or  ask. 

Syd  was  gone.  He  would  never  again,  whatever  his  soul 
might  do,  be  Syd,  the  animate,  warm,  beautiful  boy  Sandy 
had  adored.  He  was  gone.  He  was  no  more. 

Sandy  would  never  again  hear  his  laugh,  see  his  eyes 
crinkle  with  mirth,  or  watch  his  adoring  aspect  while  his 
wife  played  the  piano.  Syd  had  been ;  he  was  not. 

And  Sandy  still  was. 

The  old  priest,  the  horrid  old  man  with  the  unshaved 
blue  chin  and  the  sly  quiet  black  eyes,  had  told  Sandy  that 
he  must  marry,  and  by  so  doing  perpetuate  his  race.  The 
Sharrows  must  not  die  out. 

At  this  point  in  his  reverie,  the  courtyard  clock  struck 
five. 

Sandy,  his  bony,  harsh  face  white  as  paper  in  the  unbe- 
coming light  of  dawn,  went  to  the  nearest  window  and 
looked  out.  The  little  simple  air  that  years  ago  the  plough- 
boy  had  whistled,  sounded  again  in  his  ears.  It  had  become 
a  kind  of  sign  to  him.  It  had  come  back  to  him  many 
times,  but  of  late  always  at  times  of  crisis. 

The  night  old  Dingle  had  turned  up  in  the  Place  of  the 
Green  Tree,  it  had  haunted  him  as  he  drank  his  absinthe ; 
it  had  come  to  him  in  Rome,  as  he  talked  to  the  duchess, 
and  again  as  he  waited  at  the  station  for  the  arrival  of 
Syd  and  his  bride.  The  ploughboy  had  gone  out  of  his  life 
without  even  having  been  seen  that  morning  when  he  and 
Keith  had  stolen  out  of  the  house  and  gone  to  Jasper's  to 
buy  Winker,  but  the  strange  little  melody  had  never  gone 


410  SHARROW 

out  of  his  life ;  it  had  stayed  because  it  had  become  a  part 
of  his  mental  fabric. 

The  old  priest  had  said  he  must  marry,  and  have  a  son. 
The  old  priest  was  right. 

Poor  Sandy !  For  all  his  sufferings,  all  his  dumb  resent- 
ments, all  his  bitterness,  for  all  thoughts,  that  had  drawn 
the  deep  lines  in  his  face,  there  was  in  him,  there  would  be 
as  long  as  life  remained  in  him,  this  much  of  the  boy:  he 
was  romantic. 

And  in  this  age  of  practical  people,  perhaps  a  spirit  of 
romance  has  a  certain  value. 

Sandy  felt,  he  did  not  see,  but  he  felt  certain  things. 

And  so  in  the  ugly  yellow  satin  room,  as  the  faint  sun- 
light quietly  spread,  he  felt  these  things:  that  he  was  still 
a  man  young  enough  to  have  children ;  to  hold  a  little  boy 
of  his  own  in  his  arms ;  to  hold  it  in  his  arms  at  the  quaint 
old  stone  font  in  the  little  church,  while  the  priest  gave  it 
its  name;  that  he  was  still  young  enough  to  be  kind  and 
good  to  a  good  woman  who  would  trust  him  and  give  herself 
to  him;  that,  having  a  son,  he  could  care  in  a  way  for  his 
son's  mother;  that,  of  all  the  beautiful  and  romantic  things 
in  a  beautiful  and  romantic  world,  Motherhood  was  the 
most  beautiful;  that  a  little  boy  in  his  arms  might  almost 
make  up  to  him  for  Syd's  going  on  before. 

"I  detest  Maria  Paz,"  he  said,  slowly,  aloud,  as  the  sun 
came  up  over  the  oaks  at  the  edge  of  the  park.  ' '  I  don 't 
like  her,  and  I  am  glad  her  son  is  not  to  be  Sharrow  of 
Sharrow.  But — I  will  be  very  good  to  her.  Syd  loved 
her,  and  I  will  be  good  to  her." 

The  sun,  when  he  had  finally  cleared  himself  of  the  beau- 
tiful shadows  of  the  old  trees,  spread  richly  into  the  Yellow 
Drawing-room.  He  laid  patines  of  clear  gold  on  the  old  oak 
floor;  caught  sharp  corners  of  the  frames  of  old  pictures; 
lurked  with  a  laugh  in  mirrors,  and  on  the  piano  on  which 
Maria  Paz  had  formerly  played  poor  Syd's  soul  into  mad- 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  411 

ness ;  whitened  the  white  keys,  and  blackened  the  black  ones 
into  a  semblance  of  night. 

The  rising  sun  must  be  a  merry  soul ;  his  mirror  is  hope- 
ful. He  must  love  cheery,  lovely,  riotous  things.  And  if 
the  sun  ever  laughs,  surely  he  laughed  that  morning,  for 
when  he  finally  really  swept  past  the  windows  and  filled  the 
whole  grand,  ugly,  Georgian  room,  there  lay  poor  Sandy 
Sharrow,  exhausted  with  emotion  and  thought,  his  head  on 
a  purple  satin  pillow  on  whose  face  was  embroidered  a 
golden  dragon,  sound  asleep,  peace  on  his  hollow  eyelids,  his 
thin  lips  folded  in  a  quiet  smile. 

Sandy  had  made  up  his  mind. 


CHAPTER  LXVIII 

THERE  is  so  much  monotony  in  the  life  of  any  gentle- 
woman living  in  a  quiet  English  village  that  one  hesitates  to 
inflict  on  the  novel  reader  an  exact  account  of  her  days. 

And  Mary  Wymondham's  life  was  so  very  still,  so  very 
peaceful,  externally,  that  one  hardly  knows  how  to  develop 
it  verbally  without  the  great  offence  of  boredom.  Yet  there 
she  dwelt  in  her  little  Corner  House,  and  there  she  lived 
and  had  her  being. 

The  sunny  summer  days  slid  sweetly  by.  She  could 
hardly  distinguish  Tuesday  from  Wednesday.  She  was 
often  surprised  to  find  that  bedtime  had  come  again;  and 
yet  time  was  passing  and  she  knew  it. 

Thus  several  months  slipped  away.  Mary  marked  the 
weeks  and  days  as  they  disappeared,  in  the  simple  way  of 
simple  folk.  The  Monday  must  have  been  the  14th,  be- 
cause Julia  Barton's  twins  were  born  on  the  13th,  because 
the  Vicar  came  to  tea  on  the  16th. 

The  moon  had  been  full  the  night  she  drove  back  from 
Lady  Barston's,  therefore,  according  to  the  almanac,  old 
Jessaby  must  have  been  buried  on  the  Friday — and  so  on, 
and  so  on. 

Women  who  live  vicarious  lives,  whose  joys  and  sorrows 
are  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  others,  will  understand  this; 
there  are  in  England  many  such. 

And  the  accruing,  greedy  kind,  those  whose  only  interests 
are  those  strictly  personal  to  themselves,  will  wonder.  Let 
them. 

412 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  413 

Mary  Wymondham,  loving  Sandy,  was  in  a  way  divinely 
happy,  although  he  did  not  love  her,  for  she  was  minister- 
ing to  him.  All  those  long  months  after  Syd's  death, 
Mary  '&  was  the  only  hand  whose  touch  could  soothe  Sandy. 
And  for  the  old-fashioned,  generous-hearted  woman  this 
was  nearly  enough;  nearly,  but  not  quite,  for  she  was  a 
hot-tempered  woman,  and  the  whole  of  anything,  bad  or 
good,  was  of  a  necessity  bound  to  appeal  more  than  the  half 
of  anything,  even  of  a  thing  in  itself  bitter. 

As  she  sat  there  in  her  quiet  drawing-room,  surrounded 
by  the  things  her  mother  and  her  beautiful  high-spirited 
grandmother  had  loved,  Mary  Wymondham  was  not  un- 
happy. There  was  at  the  root  of  her  heart  a  dull  ache,  but 
there  was  no  active  discontent,  no  vital  unrest.  Sandy  did 
not  love  her,  and  she  had  always  loved  him,  but  she  was 
not  modern  enough  for  emotional  resentment. 

He  was  her  friend,  and  she  was  his.  He  came  to  her  for 
comfort,  for  that  peace  which  was,  in  his  blighted  life,  the 
thing  nearest  to  happiness  that  he  knew.  She  sympathized 
with  him,  scolded  him  sometimes,  she  even  bullied  him,  and 
to  her,  her  measure  seemed  to  be,  if  not  pressed  down  and 
overflowing,  at  least  fairly  well  filled. 

Thus  the  summer  passed,  and  autumn  came,  a  yellow 
and  red  autumn,  full  of  fruit,  warm  colors,  flowers,  and 
ripeness.  And  with  it  came  to  the  quiet  woman  in  the 
quiet  house  a  strange  fulfilment  of  what  seemed  to  her, 
life. 

It  was  a  mellow  day  early  in  September.  Mary  sat  on 
the  ground  under  the  cedar  tree  under  which  a  year  be- 
fore she  had  learned  the  news  of  Syd's  marriage.  She 
wore  a  pale  mauve  muslin  gown  with,  at  the  neck  and 
sleeves,  a  narrow  edging  of  Irish  crocheted  lace. 

Even  in  the  soft  late  afternoon  sun,  in  the  green  dimness 
of  the  cedar,  she  did  not  look  young.  She  looked  precisely 
what  she  was,  a  mature,  healthy  Englishwoman.  Beside 


414  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

her,  on  the  close-cut  grass,  stood  a  great  basket  full  of 
lavender,  and  another  receptacle,  a  green  lined  Spanish 
bowl,  a  gift  of  Maria  Paz,  held  the  winnowed  stemless 
flowers,  ready  for  the  little  muslin  bags  into  which  they 
were  being  poured,  and  into  which  they  were  being  tied 
with  narrow  purple  ribbon  by  Mary. 

It  was  a  delightful  piece  of  work;  the  sun-dried  flowers 
dropped  crisply  off,  between  her  fingers,  into  the  bowl; 
their  scent  pervaded  the  air,  and  on  the  grass  lay  the  little 
transparent  bags  that  she  had  made  that  morning. 

Perhaps  of  all  scents,  lavender  is  the  most  romantic. 
Mary  loved  it,  and  its  poesy  had  darkened  her  eyes,  and 
lent  a  certain  languor  to  her  fingers. 

She  thought,  as  she  worked,  of  her  grandmother,  Cyrilla, 
and  of  the  story  of  the  lavender  bags  Cyrilla  had  made  for 
Lord  Sharrow.  She  wondered  if  her  grandmother  had 
loved  Lord  Sharrow  as  she,  Mary,  loved  Sandy!  And,  of 
course,  she  could  not  answer  her  own  question. 

The  backward  years  seemed  so  long.  It  was  hardly  pos- 
sible that  her  grandmother  could  have  cared  for  the  old 
man  with  the  protruding  jaw,  as  she,  Mary,  cared  for 
Sandy.  Mary  loved  not  only  Sandy,  but  his  griefs  and  his 
scars. 

The  sun,  warm  and  yellow,  waned;  the  shadow  grew 
longer  and  blacker;  evening  was  coming.  And,  pregnant 
sign  of  emotion  amongst  women,  Mary  "Wymondham,  busy 
with  her  lavender,  forgot  her  tea ! 

There  it  stood  on  its  silver  tray,  with  its  squat  Georgian 
tea-pot  and  its  pretty  Chelsea  cup  and  saucer,  neglected. 
If  well-brewed  tea  can  think,  its  thoughts  must  have  been 
amusing. 

Rooks  cawed  in  the  high  trees,  and  the  sun  sank,  as  if 
bored  to  death,  down  the  uninterestingly  dull  western 
sky. 

Mary  glanced  upward,  a  little  bunch  of  lavender  in  her 


S  H  A  R  E  0  W  415 

hand.  Her  mind  was  vaguely  full  of  Sandy,  though  she 
hardly  knew  that  she  was  thinking  of  him.  The  thought 
of  him  was  like  the  delicate,  pervasive,  though  unobtrusive 
smell  of  the  drying  flowers  in  her  hands.  It  scented  the 
air  and  made  it  pleasant,  but  it  drew  no  attention  to  itself. 
And  there  in  the  quiet  garden  she  sat,  not  realizing  of  what 
she  dreamt,  yet  dreaming  soft,  sweet  dreams  of  the  man 
she  loved,  while  the  pale  sky  turned  to  a  faint  glory  of 
color. 

If  it  could  be  explained,  it  would  be  full  of  romance,  but 
it  would  be  very  difficult  to  draw  the  resemblance  between 
this  woman's  soul  and  the  scent  of  the  old-fashioned  flower 
she  was  shedding  to  sweeten  her  household  linen. 

And  then,  as  the  uppermost  red  rim  of  the  sun  disap- 
peared between  two  cedar  branches  and  the  emerald  green 
of  the  lawn  darkened  to  black,  the  wonderful  thing  hap- 
pened. 

The  gate  opened,  and  closed  more  softly. 

"That  you,  Mary?" 

At  the  sound  of  Sandy's  voice  she  started.  Her  cool 
hands  had  lain  for  some  time  motionless  in  the  bowl.  More 
time  had  passed  than  she  had  realized. 

"Yes— it's  me,  Sandy." 

Sandy,  very  tall  and  gaunt  in  his  old  gray  flannel  clothes, 
came  toward  her,  a  kind  of  half  smile  stirring  his  thin 
lips. 

"I've  been  away,"  he  said,  a  little  nervously. 

"Yes— I  know." 

"London— with  dear  old  Ben.  He  has  another  small 
sister — the  professor  is  a  marvellous  old  man — and  I  have 
been  visiting  the  other  Sandys." 

"Yes." 

Sandy  sat  down  on  the  bench,  and  sniffed. 

"I  say,  how  good  you  smell!  What  is  it — rose- 
mary ? ' ' 


416  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

"Lavender,  goose!  Mine  is  sure  to  be  better  than  yours, 
this  year — I'm  making  little  bags — want  one?" 

Sandy,  to  her  surprise,  did  not  answer  for  a  mo- 
ment. 

Instead,  he  sat  silent  in  the  dusk,  a  handful  of  the  sweet 
herb  held  to  his  large,  appreciative  nose. 

The  upper  windows  of  Mary's  little  house  were  lit  now; 
the  small  maid  was  obviously  at  work. 

A  cart  rattled  by,  its  sound,  in  reality  near,  apparently 
deadened  by  the  high  stone  wall. 

It  was  so  quiet — so  quiet ! 

Suddenly  through  the  dense  leaves  of  the  apple-trees, 
to  the  west,  something  appeared — a  lovely  soft  light  that 
drew  each  twig  with  a  pencil  of  fire.  It  was  the  moon 
rising. 

' '  Look ! ' '  Mary  said,  laying  her  large,  sweet-scented  hand 
on  Sandy's  arm. 

She  was  so  familiar  with  the  idea  of  her  own  love  for 
him,  so  convinced  that  he  not  only  did  not,  but  never  could 
know,  that  she  felt  no  embarrassment  in  touching  him. 
"Look!" 

Sandy  grasped  her  hand  firmly,  and  for  a  few  minutes 
they  sat  there  in  the  quiet  little  garden,  hand  in  hand, 
watching  the  moon  rise  between  the  branches  of  the  gnarled 
apple-trees. 

They  neither  of  them  ever  forgot  the  scene,  the  darken- 
ing garden,  the  thickly  foliaged  trees,  the  growing  glow  in 
the  sky. 

And  then,  when  at  last  the  moon,  free  from  the  trees, 
rode  high,  Sandy  spoke. 

"Mary,"  he  said,  very  gently,  "I  have  something  to  say 
to  you." 

"Yes." 

She  was  mildly  surprised,  but  only  very  mildly,  and 
did  not  even  turn  her  eyes  to  his.  Without  turning  she 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  417 

could,  with  her  mind,  see  him,  his  pale  gaunt  face,  his 
clear,  light  little  eyes. 

''Ever  since  Syd — died,"  Sandy  went  on,  "I  have  been 
thinking.  Or  rather — ever  since  that  old  priest  suggested 
— but  never  mind  that." 

He  paused.  "I  have  been  thinking.  Can  you  not  guess 
about  what?" 

Her  hand  lay  quite  quietly  in  his.  ' '  No,  Sandy,  I  don 't 
think  I  can." 

Her  little  garden  was  so  near  to  her,  so  close;  she  knew 
it  so  well.  She  was  at  home  there,  and  her  hand  seemed 
at  home  in  his.  She  felt  no  shyness,  no  self-consciousness. 

There  was  a  short  pause,  and  then,  gathering  her  fingers 
closer  into  his,  he  went  on.  "I  have  been  thinking — about 
the  old  place,  Mary,  since  his  death.  I  have  no  heir.  If  I 
died  now,  the  other  Sandy  Sharrow  would  be " 

"The  other  Sandy!" 

"Yes.  The  other  Sandy.  Poor  old  Great-uncle!  And 
— well,  I  want  to  keep  it  closer  than  that.  Mary — I  sup- 
pose, as  far  as  a  woman  can  know  a  man,  you  know  what 
there  is  to  know  about  me." 

For  an  almost  imperceptible  space  of  time  she  was 
silent.  Then  she  agreed  simply:  "Yes,  Sandy." 

' '  And — you  know  that  my  life  is  just  about  over. ' ' 

"Yes." 

"I  loved — Viola — with  all  my  heart.  I  did  really.  Then 
— there  was  Miss  Penrose,  and  there  were  others.  I  have 
not  been  good,  Mary;  I  have  even  been — indiscriminate. 
And — I  never  could  love  again,  really,  because — well,  I 
suppose,"  he  added  with  a  laugh,  "because  I  am  not  worth 
it." 

"Poor  old  Sandy!" 

Even  yet  she  did  not  understand,  and  the  little  squeeze 
she  gave  his  hand  was  nearly  as  impersonal  as  that  of  some 
man  friend  might  have  been. 


418  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

Sandy  smiled,  but  she  was  looking  at  the  sky  and  did 
not  see. 

' '  Mary, ' '  he  asked  very  gently,  ' '  could  you  marry  me  ? " 

For  a  long  time  it  seemed  to  them  both  there  was  silence. 

''Me — marry  you?"  She  had  never  stammered  before, 
and  she  knew  it. 

"Yes — I — I  don't  love  you  in  the  way  I  loved  Viola — 
but — I  like  you,  Mary,  dear,  more  than  I  like  anyone  on 
earth.  And — well" — suddenly  he  rose  and  stood  before 
her.  "If  I  am  to  have  a  son,  I  should  rather  he  had  your 
qualities  than  the  qualities  of  any  woman  I  ever  saw  in  my 
life.  Will  you  marry  me?" 

And  then  it  seemed  to  Mary  Wymondham  for  the  first 
time  in  her  life  that  she  must  faint ;  that  she  must  let  her 
wits  go,  and  sink  in  a  kind  of  merciful  sleep  on  the  grass ; 
that  her  nerves  would  bear  no  more;  that  she  must  rest, 
and  sleep  and  forget. 

She  clasped  her  hands  in  her  lap,  and  looked  bravely 
up  at  Sandy,  saying  to  herself  that  she  would  not  faint. 

"Will  I  marry  you?" 

"Yes.  I  am  not  a  romantic  lover,  Mary,"  he  returned, 
"but — I  am  very  fond  of  you,  and " 

"But,  Sandy,  you  don't  love  me."  She  rose,  and  stood 
breast  to  breast  with  him,  her  brave  eyes  glowing  in  the 
moonlight. 

And  Sandy  was  as  brave  as  she. 

' '  Love  you  ?  No,  I  won 't  lie  to  you.  When  I  was  young 
and  good,  I  loved  Viola.  But  now — no,  my  dear,  it  isn't 
love.  I  know  I  don't  deserve  you,  and  I  know  you  don't 
love  me.  But — as  I  said  before,  if  I  could  have  a  son  like 
you,  I  should  thank  God.  I  like  you  so  much,  Mary;  and 
I  admire  you — and — it  sounds  very  dull,  dear,  but  I — 
respect  you.  You  are  my  best,  my  only  friend.  Marry  me, 
Mary." 

He  held  out  his  hands,  and  she  gave  him  hers.     Poor 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  419 

soul,  she  loved  him  so  that  she  could  barely  see  or  speak. 
But  she  kept  her  wits  and  said  as  he  took  her  hands : 

' '  I  understand,  Sandy,  and — yes — I  will  marry  you. ' ' 

And  when  he  very  gravely,  very  ceremoniously  kissed 
her,  she  seemed  as  grave,  as  ceremonious,  as  he. 

"I'll  do  my  best  to  be  good  to  you,  my  dear,"  he  said, 
releasing  her. 

"And  I  will  do  my  best,  Sandy " 

And  the  moon  rose  higher  and  higher,  clearing  the  sky, 
and  in  the  garden  stood  the  man  and  the  woman  looking 
seriously  at  each  other. 


CHAPTER  LXIX 

WHEN  a  man  has  for  years  loved  a  woman  in  vain,  and 
finally  wins  her,  there  must  be  in  the  mixture  of  his  feel- 
ings, a  decided  element  of  triumph. 

Triumph  may  be  a  fine  and  uplifting  sensation,  but  it 
can  be  nothing  to  the  exquisite  humility  experienced  by 
Mary  Wymondham  when  Sandy  asked  her  to  be  his  wife. 

She  had  loved  him,  it  seemed  to  her,  all  her  life.  When 
he  came  back  and  found  her  a  mature  woman,  he  grew 
gradually  to  regard  her  as  a  friend,  but  to  her  a  miracle 
happened;  she  found  that,  though  while  she  was  a  girl 
she  had  not  recognized  her  own  love,  it  had  yet  been  there ; 
that  the  feeling  she  experienced  now  was  not  a  new  one, 
but  merely  the  continuance  of  an  old  one  that  time  had 
ripened  and  absence  never  weakened. 

During  the  time  of  Viola's  engagement,  Mary  had  in  her 
heart  always  rebelled  against  her  sister's  passivity,  and 
when  Viola  returned,  unengaged,  after  her  visit  to  Guelph 
Square,  the  elder  girl's  indignation  against  her  had  been 
not  only  strong,  but  strangely  articulate. 

"You  are  a  coward,"  she  told  Viola,  her  dark  cheeks 
ablaze,  and  Viola  had  wept. 

But  Mary,  though  a  girl  of  strong  partisanship,  was  not 
of  the  kind  who  takes  active  steps.  She  believed  her  feel- 
ing for  Sandy  to  be  one  of  simple  friendship,  yet  she 
made  no  move  to  assure  him,  in  his  voluntary  exile,  of  her 
sympathy.  Viola,  though,  in  her  eyes,  wrong  to  desert  her 
lover,  was  her  sister,  and  the  family  feeling,  so  strong  in 
some  people,  so  strangely  absent  in  others,  was  in  Mary 

420 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  421 

very  powerful.  So  Mary  said  nothing  to  anyone  except  to 
Viola,  and  when  she  found  that  her  remonstrances  only 
caused  Viola  to  cry  and  to  repeat  again  each  horrid  episode 
of  the  night  in  Guelph  Square,  she  relinquished  them  and 
said  no  more. 

But  she  had  never,  great  as  was  her  love  for  her  sister, 
forgiven  Viola  for  what  she,  Mary,  stigmatized  as  her  "lack 
of  backbone, ' '  and  in  her  heart  she  had  from  the  first  taken 
sides  with  Sandy. 

And  then  when  he  came  back,  and  she  found  that  her 
feeling  had,  from  the  very  beginning,  been  love,  she  was 
so  used  to  the  feeling  itself,  though  the  word  was  new,  that 
it  hardly  disturbed  the  smooth  tenor  of  her  life;  she  was 
not  upset,  nor  frightened,  nor  ecstatic.  The  treasure  had 
been  hers  all  along,  and  her  tardy  recognition  of  it  came 
better  late  than  never. 

She  had  given  to  Sandy  exactly  what  he  wanted,  a  sane, 
cool  friendship ;  the  love  dwelt  apart  from  him  in  her  heart, 
and  he  knew  not  of  its  existence. 

And  now,  as  she  sat  alone  by  her  little  fire,  she  sat  with 
closed  eyes,  given  up  to  the  wonder  of  his  wanting  her  for 
his  wife.  The  firelight  played  on  her  face  with  its  strongly- 
marked  features,  so  free  from  any  passion-marks,  any  lines 
of  active  pain;  it  warmed  her  soft  dark  hair  to  gold;  it 
dwelt,  as  if  lovingly,  on  the  new  beauty  of  her  expression. 

Sandy  wanted  her  to  be  his  wife.  It  was  in  all  the  world 
the  most  wondrous  thing,  and  its  wonder  made  her  beauti- 
ful. Her  imagination  gave  no  heed  to  the  immediate  fu- 
ture, but  sprang  ahead  until  she  beheld  herself  the  mother 
of  his  son,  and  saw  him  holding  in  his  lonely  arms  the 
little  creature  who  was  to  fill  his  heart. 

She  was  so  far  from  vanity  that  she  made  no  determina- 
tion, as  most  loving  women  would  have  done,  to  win  his 
love.  He  had  asked  her  to  be  his  wife,  and  she  was  content 
with  a  heavenly  content  unknown  to  the  selfish. 


422  SHARROW 

The  next  afternoon  Sandy  came  again.  He  kissed  her 
gravely,  and  they  sat  for  hours  talking  together.  He  talked 
as  he  had  never  done  before  about  Viola,  about  Maggie 
Penrose,  about  his  life  during  those  ten  years. 

"But — you  did  love  her?"  she  asked  a  little  shyly. 

"Maggie?  No,  dear — I  never  loved  her."  He  spoke 
in  a  dry  voice,  but  his  mouth  was  a  little  set,  and  she  knew 
that  it  hurt  him  so  to  envisage  the  past. 

"I— I  hoped  you  did,  Sandy." 

"Yes — it  would  have  been  better,  but — she  was  very 
good  to  me,  Mary,  in  her  way.  She  was  patient,  and 
gentle,  and — long-suffering ' ' 

"You  were  bad  to  her?" 

Sandy  shook  his  head  wearily.  "No — not  cruel,  if  you 
mean  that.  I  was  never  faithful  to  her. ' ' 

Mary  had  the  curiosity  of  most  innocent  women.  "But 
why?" 

4 '  Why  wasn  't  I  faithful  to  her  ?  Well — it 's  hard  to  say. 
I  suppose  only  a  great  love  can  keep  an  average  man  faith- 
ful. Women  don't  understand.  And  I  never  loved  her  at 
all — so  you  see " 

"And  then  when  you  found  out  about  her — plot,  poor 
soul !  you  left  her,  and  never  forgave  her. ' ' 

' '  Exactly.  You  know  about  my  great-uncle.  Well,  I  am 
the  same.  We  do  not  forgive!" 

She  looked  at  him.  ' '  Perhaps  you  forgive  without  know- 
ing it,  Sandy." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

But  Mary  did  not  explain.  There  were  many  things  she 
meant  to  tell  him,  but  not  just  yet,  and  there  was  to  her 
an  exquisite  luxury  in  the  thought  that  she  had  before  her 
all  the  time  of  their  two  lives — so  much  time  in  which  to 
tell  him  her  thoughts,  so  much  leisure,  so  little  need  for 
haste. 

And,  indeed,  there  seemed  little  haste  in  anything  those 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  423 

months.  September  was  a  glorious  time  of  long,  warm 
days  and  quiet,  pleasant  occupation. 

Mary  went  to  Scotland  for  the  latter  fortnight  to  see 
Viola,  who  was  home  from  Cape  Town  on  a  visit  to  her 
husband's  relations,  but  early  in  October  she  was  back 
again  in  her  dear  house  that  she  loved,  and  once  more  saw 
Sandy  every  day. 

Sandy  himself  was  content,  but  he  was  not  happy.  His 
affection  for  Mary  was  great,  but  it  was  not  great  enough 
to  blot  out  the  real  emptiness  of  his  life.  He  missed  Syd 
more  and  more,  and  more  and  more  he  disliked  Maria 
Paz. 

She,  for  her  part,  went  her  way  enveloped  in  a  curious 
apartness;  she  was,  it  seemed  to  her  unwilling  host,  as 
much  like  a  disembodied  spirit  as  a  flesh  and  blood  being 
could  be.  He  saw  her  every  day,  but  she  wore  such  a 
withdrawn  look  that  between  his  glimpses  of  her  he  so 
nearly  forgot  her  that  their  next  meeting  came  on  him 
with  a  kind  of  shock.  And  the  time  was  coming  when  he 
must  tell  her  his  news.  That  the  news  would  imply  a  wish 
that  she  should  betake  herself  elsewhere,  he  knew,  and 
he  knew  how  bitter  would  be  her  resentment.  She  had 
come  to  stay,  and  now  her  short  tenure  was  up,  and  she 
must  go 

Sandy  dreaded  his  inevitable  revelation,  put  it  off  for 
weeks,  and  then  one  evening,  as  he  walked  home  from 
Mary's  in  the  rain,  he  made  a  sudden  resolution  to  get 
it  over. 

It  was  a  mild  night  in  mid-October.  Under  low-hanging 
clouds  the  sun  had  some  time  since  disappeared,  leaving 
a  chill  yellow  gleam  in  the  sky. 

Sandy  walked  quickly,  his  head  bent.  "If  I  tell  her  to- 
night, she'll  surely  be  gone  in  a  week,"  he  told  himself, 
"and  then " 

A  faint  glow  of  pleasure  warmed  his  heart  at  the  thought. 


424  S  H  A  E  R  0  W 

For  many  months  his  house  had  been  pervaded  by  a  Span- 
ish atmosphere;  now  it  would  clear  away,  and  he  would 
breathe  better. 

He  and  Mary  would  be  married  before  Christmas,  and 
he  would  try  to  begin  his  life  over  again.  Ben  Frith  was 
coming  in  a  day  or  two;  old  Ben,  with  his  shabby  clothes, 
his  pipe,  and  his  dear,  shy  ways.  They  would  talk,  and  plan, 
and  dream.  Ben  always  brought  to  Sandy  a  fleeting  sen- 
sation of  youth,  as  if  Time  had  for  a  moment  really  turned 
back  in  his  flight. 

Sandy  stood  for  a  minute  or  two  in  the  courtyard,  look- 
ing about  him. 

The  Feeling  had  gone;  he  had  felt  not  the  slightest 
pulsation  of  it  since  Syd's  death;  with  youth  and  hope 
it  had  disappeared  forever. 

But  Mary,  his  best  friend,  was  coming  to  him  as  his 
wife.  She  was  good,  he  liked  her,  he  would  be  glad  to 
have  her  as  his  son's  mother. 

He  knew  perfectly  well  that  but  for  the  necessity  of 
his  having  a  son,  he  would  never  have  dreamed  of  asking 
Mary  to  marry  him.  He  had  no  delusions  about  the  nature 
of  his  feeling  for  her;  he  knew  that  he  did  not  love  her. 
She  was  his  friend,  and  she  was  to  be  his  wife,  and  the  fact 
gave  him  a  certain  comfortable  sensation  of  satisfaction, 
but  that  was  all. 

And  he  never  dreamed  that  her  feelings  for  him  might 
be  of  an  intenser  nature. 

It  was,  so  far  as  he  knew,  a  simple  arrangement  that 
involved  no  emotion  of  any  kind. 

The  torches  burnt  very  quietly  in  the  damp  air,  as  he 
stood  reflecting  in  the  courtyard.  The  old  house  was  so 
beautiful,  so  romantic;  he  suddenly  longed,  with  a  fervor 
that  hurt,  to  find  again  the  Feeling  that  used  to  cause  him 
such  an  intense  joy. 

And  then  he  realized  that  within  a  year  there  might  be 


SHARROW  425 

within  the  old  walls  a  little  being  to  whom  the  Feeling 
must  be  made  everything. 

He  had  planned  his  marriage  expressly  to  have  an  heir, 
but  to-night  for  the  first  time  it  came  home  to  him  that  his 
heir  was  not  to  be  an  abstract  part  of  the  scheme  of  the 
universe,  but  a  living,  breathing  baby ;  a  little  rosy  bundle 
that  laughed  and  cried;  and,  later,  a  boy — and  a  man. 
Sandy's  red  head  glowed  for  a  moment  in  the  torchlight  as 
he  stood,  hat  in  hand.  Then  he  went  in. 


CHAPTER  LXX 

MARIA  PAZ  was  sitting  stiffly  in  the  teakwood  chair  by  the 
fire  in  the  Chinese  Room.  She  looked,  as  Sandy  paused  on 
the  threshold,  as  if  she  had  not  stirred  for  hours. 

And  she  looked,  he  realized,  as  if  she  belonged  to  the 
room  as  much  as  did  the  porcelain  dragons.  She  was  alien 
in  appearance  to  the  rest  of  the  house,  but  here  she  seemed 
to  fit.  For  a  moment  Sandy  actually  wondered  if  it  would 
really  be  possible  to  dislodge  her?  Whether  she  had  not 
taken  such  deep  roots  there  that  she  could  not  be  made  to 
go. 

Then  he  closed  the  door,  and  joined  her. 

"Good   evening." 

"Good  evening,  Sandy."  She  did  not  look  at  him,  or 
stir. 

"It's  raining  again." 

"I  know.    I've  been  to  White  Shirley." 

He  was  surprised.     "This  afternoon?" 

"Yes.     I  have  been  to  confession." 

Sandy  grinned  a  little,  but  tried  to  conceal  it.  What  on 
earth,  he  wondered,  could  she  have  to  confess  at  least  once 
a  week. 

"  It 's  a  pretty  drive  there, ' '  he  went  on,  repentant  of  his 
rudeness. 

"Yes." 

Of  late  she  had  grown  more  silent.  She  seemed  never  to 
wish  to  talk ;  she  answered  questions,  but  as  curtly  as  possi- 
ble, and  never  of  her  own  accord  started  a  conversation. 

426 


S  H  A  R  E  0  W  427 

Then  a  long  pause,  during  which  Sandy  studied  her  face 
intently.  She  was  pale,  and  her  strange  little  eyes  seemed 
to  have  lost  their  lustre. 

"Are  you  not  well,  Maria  Paz?"  he  asked,  kindly. 

"No.  And  I  am  a  black  woman.  When  we  black  women 
are  ill  we  show  it;  we  get  uglier  and  uglier — as  you  were 
thinking  just  now  about  me." 

She  spoke  unresentfully,  but  her  guess  had  been  correct, 
and  he  was  again  touched  with  pity  for  her. 

"Nonsense!  I  thought  you  looked  pale,  that  was 
all " 

"How,"  interrupted  Maria  Paz,  "is  Mary  Wymond- 
ham?" 

"She  is  well.    I  have  just  been  to  see  her." 

"She  is  always  well  and  you  have  always  just  been  to 
see  her." 

In  the  firelight  Sandy's  lower  teeth  showed  for  a  second 
in  the  angry  movement  his  jaw  made;  but  he  did  not 
answer. 

Presently  she  went  on,  slowly  and  softly,  but  not  at  all 
casually,  he  knew. 

"You  are  her  very  good  friend." 

"Yes,  I  have  known  her  all  my  life." 

Here  was,  of  course,  his  opportunity,  but  for  some  reason 
he  allowed  Maria  Paz  to  direct  the  conversation. 

"She  is  a  good  woman,  what  you  call  very  nice.  But 
she  is  dull,  so  dull!" 

"I  don't  agree  with  you.  She  is  quiet,  but  she  is  not 
dull." 

"You  are  dull  yourself,  Sandy,  that  is  why  you  do  not 
feel  it  in  her." 

Rude  as  her  words  were,  her  manner  was  so  simple  as  to 
be  absolutely  inoffensive.  Sandy  laughed.  "I  suppose  I 
am,"  he  returned,  "but  where  are  your  Spanish  manners 
that  you  tell  me  so?" 


428  SHARROW 

"You  are  good,  Sandy.  You  are  not  unjust — you  would 
never  be  unjust  even  to  me,  whom  you  do  not  like." 

Sandy  looked  at  her.    ' '  I  try  to  be  just. ' ' 

"Yes.  It  is  a  fine  quality.  And  best  of  all  is  it  to  be 
just  to  one  whose  nature  is  all  against  one's  own  taste " 

"And  you  think  I  am  just  to  you?  I  am  glad,  for  I 
want  to  talk  to  you  about  business  to-night. ' ' 

"Yes,  I  know.    About  money." 

"About  money  amongst  other  things,  yes.  I  wish  you  to 
accept  from  me  an  income  for  your  life.  Syd,  as  you 
know,  had  no  money  of  his  own,  but  I  wish  you  to  have 
the  income  I  gave  him. ' ' 

"Thank  you." 

"I  will  have  my  solicitor  draw  up  the  papers,  so  that,  no 
matter  what  happens  to  me,  your  future  will  be  assured. ' ' 

"Thanks." 

She  sat  perfectly  immobile,  her  eyes  half  closed,  but  he 
knew  that  she  was  tinglingly  alive ;  that  every  nerve  of  her 
was  at  its  keenest.  She  seemed  to  be  listening,  listening, 
trying  to  hear  the  thoughts  that  lay  behind  his  words. 

"I  suppose,"  he  went  on  slowly,  "that  you  will  wish  to 
go  back  to  your  own  country " 

"No!"  Maria  Paz'  monosyllable  rang  out  almost  like  a 
shot,  so  decisive  it  was,  so  keen. 

' '  You— prefer  England  ? ' ' 

"I  prefer  my  husband's  country.  I  am  an  English- 
woman now.  I  love  the  things  he  loved  ;  the  place  where  he 
lived " 

"He  'lived,'  "  Sandy  announced  dryly,  "in  Blooms- 
bury." 

"But  I — he  brought  me  here.  Sandy,"  she  turned  sud- 
denly and  her  eyes  looked  straight  into  his,  "let  me  stay 
here." 

"At  Sharrow?" 

"Yes.    I  will  get  well,  I  will  take  care  of  your  house; 


S  H  A  R  E  O  W  429 

I  will  look  after  you.  You  do  not  like  me,  but  I  am  clever ; 
I  can  make  you  comfortable — and  I  wish  to  stay  here." 

"But  that  can  hardly  be."  He  spoke  gently,  for  he  was 
touched.  He  had  not  realized  before  that  she  was  capable 
of  sentiment. 

"Why  can  it  'hardly  be'?  I  am  over  thirty;  I  am  not 
pretty;  I  am  your  sister.  My  uncle,  a  priest,  would  live 
here,  too — there  could  be  no  scandal.  And  I  love  this 
place,  I  tell  you,  I — Sandy,  I  love  Sharrow!" 

Her  voice  had  risen  until  she  was  now  speaking  in  the 
rough  high  tones  characteristic  of  Catalonia.  Sandy's 
amazement  grew.  He  knew  that  she  was  not  acting. 
In  some  strange  way  she  had  acquired  a  love  of  Syd's 
home. 

"Let  me  stay  here,  Sandy."  Pleading  seemed  very  alien 
to  her,  yet  the  very  roughness  of  her  voice  seemed  to  accent 
its  quality. 

He  rose. 

"Listen,  Maria  Paz,"  he  said.  "I  am  glad  you  like 
Sharrow.  It  would,  of  course,  have  been  yours  one  day,  if 
my  brother  had  lived.  But — he  has  gone.  And — this  is 
what  I  wished  to  tell  you — I  am  going  to  marry.  I  ain 
going  to  marry  Mary  Wymondham." 

Maria  Paz  stared  at  him  until  the  stare  had  changed  to  a 
glare.  Then,  without  a  word,  she  went  out  of  the  room. 

She  closed  the  door  so  softly  that  he  could  hardly  believe 
that  she  was  in  truth  gone.  But  when  he  found  that  he  was 
indeed  alone,  he  sat  down  in  the  chair  she  had  occupied. 

At  that  moment  he  liked  her.  The  intensity  of  her  feel- 
ing for  the  home  that  had  been  her  husband's,  and  was  to 
have  been  hers,  was  so  akin  to  passion  for  the  place  that 
he  felt  a  thrill  of  real  sympathy  for  her.  It  had  all  hung 
by  such  a  slight  thread.  If  Syd  had  lived  and  she  had  had 
a  baby  coming,  the  place  would  have  been  so  strongly  hers. 
He,  Sandy,  would,  in  that  case,  have  seemed  almost  an  out- 


430  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

sider.  And  the  accident  of  a  shy  horse  had  broken  this 
woman's  life;  changed  its  whole  current. 

Sandy  was  deeply  sorry  for  her. 

If  Syd  had  only  lived;  if  the  plan  made  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  by  the  gods  had  been  allowed  to  hold  good, 
then  he  would  have  been  already  the  dry  branch  of  the 
tree,  and  Maria  Paz'  son,  the  heir. 

If  only  Syd  could  come  in,  muddy  and  merry,  from  a 
long  walk;  if  only  Syd's  son  was  to  be  the  heir. 

Sandy  suddenly  felt  himself  so  old,  so  old — too  old  to 
marry  and  carry  on  the  family.  He  wanted,  it  seemed,  to 
rest ;  to  sit  by  the  fire  and  watch  Syd 's  boy  playing  on  the 
rug.  His  own  life  was  over ;  it  was  unfair  that  he  should 
have  to  marry  and  begin  a  lifelong  farce  of  being  a  man  of 
his  own  generation;  he  was,  he  felt,  his  own  grandfather. 

Poor  Mary !  As  he  sat  there,  he  wished  with  all  his  heart 
that  a  baby  was  on  its  way  to  Maria  Paz,  the  woman  he  did 
not  love,  because  it  would  be  Syd's  baby,  and  its  little  life 
would  relegate  him  again  to  the  obscurity  of  old  age  that 
for  the  moment  seemed  the  only  thing  worth  having. 

He  dreaded  marrying;  he  knew  that  he  was  not  good 
enough  for  Mary ;  he  knew  that  his  life  must  be  henceforth 
one  of  effort.  He  must  make  her  happy.  And  he  did  not 
know  how  to  do  it. 

The  Mary  who  was  his  familiar  friend,  whose  quiet  tastes 
he  so  well  understood,  left  him ;  in  her  place,  he  beheld  the 
woman,  still  young,  suddenly  raised  to  a  great  position,  the 
new  wife,  the  young  mother.  And  he  was  too  old. 

Sighing  deeply,  he  rose  and  went  upstairs. 

He  did  not  see  Maria  Paz  again  until  the  following  night 
after  dinner. 

He  had  worked  hard  all  day,  not  going  to  see  Mary,  for 
he  was  ashamed  of  his  own  thoughts,  and  he  was  very 
tired. 

Dingle  had  bored  him ;  a  tenant  had  been  troublesome, 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  431 

and  the  cottage  hospital,  the  work  on  which  had  just,  owing 
to  Mary's  pleading,  been  resumed,  seemed  at  sixes  and 
sevens.  Sandy  wished  that  there  were  no  such  things  on 
the  earth  as  cottage  hospitals. 

He  had  another  worry,  too — a  letter  from  a  nun  in  the 
Vosges,  saying  that  Maggie  Penrose  was  dying,  and  wished 
to  see  him. 

"She  bids  me  say,"  the  nun  wrote,  "that  she  is  really 
dying — or  you  will  not  believe  her.  Poor  lady !  it  is  indeed 
true.  It  is  her  heart.  She  is  as  a  machine  overworked. 
Our  good  doctor  says  three  weeks  or  a  month. ' ' 

The  letter  had  brought  back  many  thoughts  to  him. 

Poor,  pretty  Maggie!  who  had  lied  and  plotted  and 
broken  his  heart,  but  because  she  loved  him. 

It  seemed  to  the  upright  man  an  uncommonly  bad  reason 
for  doing  what  she  had  done,  but  he  knew  that  she  had 
really  loved  him.  And  she  lay  there  in  the  cold  mountain 
air,  dying,  and  thinking  of  him. 

He  recalled  her  patience  with  him;  her  gentleness  when 
he  came  back  to  her ;  her  marvellous  long-suffering. 

' '  I  wonder, ' '  he  said  aloud  to  himself  with  a  little  smile, 
"if  I  am  forgiving  her,  as  Mary  said,  without  knowing  it." 

Then  his  mind  reverted  to  Viola.  Mary  had  told  him  of 
her  two  children,  both  delicate — both  had  undergone  slight 
operations,  and  she  had  had  to  leave  them  at  home  in  Cape 
Town,  whither  she  was  to  go  back  in  a  fortnight's  time. 
Viola  was  more  beautiful  than  ever,  Mary  had  said,  and  so 
interested  in  Mary's  engagement. 

"Tell  him  I  send  him  my  love,"  the  younger  sister  had 
said,  "and  if  I  ever  hurt  him,  I  am  sorry." 

If  she  had  ever  hurt  him !  Poor  Sandy's  grim  smile  was, 
as  he  recalled  the  words,  rather  piteous.  He  was  not  of 
those  happy  men  who  regard  their  own  sins  through  rose- 
colored  spectacles.  He  knew  what  he  had  originally  been, 
what  he  had  become,  and  what  he  now  was. 


432  SHARROW 

Poor  little  Viola ! 

He  started.  Was  it  he,  Sharrow,  who  found  himself 
pitying  the  two  women  who  between  them  had  mined  him  ? 
What  had  happened  to  him?  Was  even  his  Hebraic  stern- 
ness of  hatred  going  from  him? 

If  so  it  was  Mary 's  fault ;  Mary  with  her  sometimes  rough 
manner  and  her  never-failing  gentleness  of  heart.  He  re- 
sented her  influence,  and  hated  himself  for  his  susceptibility 
to  it. 

How  his  old  great-uncle  would  have  despised  him! 


CHAPTER  LXXI 

AND  then  the  knock  came  to  his  door.  He  glanced  at  the 
clock ;  it  was  two  minutes  to  eleven. 

"Come  in." 

Maria  Paz  entered,  a  little  sable  figure,  far  more  in 
mourning,  it  seemed  to  him,  than  a  fair  woman  could  ever 
be.  Her  very  lips  had  lost  their  color,  so  that  she  was  all 
black  and  white. 

' '  I  have  something  to  tell  you,  Sandy, ' '  she  said. 

"Sit  down." 

She  did  not  obey  him.  Instead  she  came  and  stood  by 
the  chair  from  which  he  had  risen.  Her  eyes  were  dropped. 
He  could  see  only  the  purple-stained  upper  lids.  Her 
hands  were  clasped  before  her,  and  on  the  left  one  he  saw 
the  faint  glimmering  of  Syd's  ring. 

' '  I  have  come  to  tell  you, ' '  she  began,  and  then  the  clock 
struck  eleven,  slowly,  ponderously,  and  she  awaited  it  with 
a  certain  air  of  perfunctory  politeness. 

When  it  had  ceased,  she  began  again  and  went  on  simply 
and  without  haste  or  hesitation :  "I  have  come  to  tell  you 
that  I  am  going  to  have  a  baby. ' ' 

"You " 

"Yes.    It  will  be  born  in  January." 

Sandy  leaned  against  the  table.  "Why  did  you  not  tell 
me  before?"  His  voice  sounded  to  his  own  ears  as  if  he 
had  acquired  from  her  something  of  the  Catalonian  harsh- 
ness. 

"Because — it  was  my  secret.    Syd's  and  mine." 

433 


434  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

"Syd's?     But— Syd  knew?" 

"No.  You  will  say  he  died  without  knowing.  I  know 
that  ever  since  he  died  he  has  known.  And  it  has  made 
for  me  a  closeness  to  him." 

Sandy's  eyes  roamed  helplessly  across  her  little  figure. 
To  him  she  looked  exactly  the  same  as  she  had  always  done. 
But  then,  he  knew  little  about  such  things. 

"He  will  be  your  heir,"  Maria  Paz  declared,  serenely, 
sitting  down.  "His  name  will  be  'Sydney'." 

' '  His  name  must  be  Alexander,  I  am  afraid.  But — I — I 
congratulate  you,  Maria  Paz.  I — you  must  see  Turner  to- 
morrow." 

"Why?    I  am  not  ill." 

She  looked,  however,  desperately  ill,  and  he  rang  and 
ordered  for  her  some  of  the  Vino  Negro  Syd  had  imported 
for  her. 

She  drank  a  glass  obediently  and  then,  holding  it,  empty, 
but  still  glowing  a  light  pink  in  the  firelight,  she  resumed : 

' '  So  now  you  will  not  marry  Mary  Wymondham. ' ' 

Sandy  started.  The  moment  that  she  had  made  her  an- 
nouncement he  had  known  that  he  need  not  marry.  Syd's 
baby  would,  of  course,  be  his  heir,  and  he  had  no  doubt 
whatever  as  to  the  child's  sex.  Poor  Syd  had  after  all 
provided  the  old  house  with  a  future  owner,  and  Sandy, 
was  free. 

But  he  resented  Maria  Paz'  remark. 

' '  We  need  not  discuss  my  affairs, ' '  he  said  stiffly 

Then  a  curious  thing  happened.  Maria  Paz  laughed 
aloud  and  in  the  quiet  room,  in  the  night,  there  was  some- 
thing not  only  unpleasant  but,  it  seemed  to  Sandy's  tense 
nerves,  almost  horrible  in  her  laugh. 

"You  promised  your  brother  that  he  and  his  sons  were 
to  be  your  heirs,"  she  said. 

Sandy  did  not  answer. 

"And — you  will  keep  your  word,  Lord  Sharrow.    And  I 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  435 

will  stay  here,  for  it  would  not  be  fitting  that  your  heir 
should  be  born  elsewhere." 

"No,  no  —  of  course  you  must  stay  here!" 

At  the  eagerness  in  his  voice,  she  smiled. 

"I  will  stay,"  she  said  slowly,  "just  as  long  as  I  wish." 

Sandy's  head  seemed  to  spin  around.  What  on  earth 
was  she  driving  at  now  ?  he  asked  himself. 

At  first  she  had  begged  to  be  allowed  to  stay,  and  now 
she  was  threatening  to  go. 

"I  will  do  all  I  can  to  make  you  comfortable,"  he  stam- 
mered, enveloped  in  the  baffling  fog  of  non-comprehension 
that  all  men  have  felt  at  one  time  or  another  in  dealing  with 
woman. 

"Thank  you.    My  cousin  will  come  and  look  after  me." 

"Your  cousin?" 

"Yes,  Pedro  Fons,  Miguel's  brother.  He  is  a  doctor  in 
Catalonia." 


1  '  No.  I  will  have  a  Spanish  doctor.  I  will  have  my  own 
cousin.  And  I  will  have  my  sister-in-law,  Carmelita,  as  my 
nurse.  And  —  Catalina,  my  maid  whom  you  sent  away,  she, 
too,  will  come  back." 

Sandy  gasped  at  the  sheer  audacity  of  her. 

"But  Turner  is  an  excellent  doctor,"  he  said,  "and  our 
English  nurses  are  the  best  in  the  world." 

"No  doubt.    But  I  am  a  Spanish  woman." 

Her  imperturbability  quite  unstirred,  she  continued  to 
look  at  him  from  his  own  chair;  she  had  ousted  him  from 
it,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  she  was  bent  on  ousting  him 
from  his  own  house.  Two  more  cousins  and  a  maiu  !  The 
woman's  family  was  as  the  sands  of  the  sea. 

"You  forget,  Maria  Paz,"  he  said,  sternly,  "my  heir  is 
an  Englishman." 

"Possibly.    But  my  son  is  a  Spaniard." 

Vague  memories  of  words  he  had  heard  relative  to  the 


436  S  II  A  R  R  O  W 

necessity  for  women  carrying  children  having  their  own 
way,  came  to  his  mind.  She  was  obstinate,  and  foreign,  and 
detestable,  but  she  was  carrying  Syd's  child,  and  she  loved 
Sharrow. 

"Listen,  Maria  Paz,"  taking  her  hand,  and  speaking 
gently,  ' '  we  must  not  quarrel.  We  must  both  do  all  we  can 
for  Syd's  child.  Will  you  write  to-morrow  for — your  rela- 
tives to  come  ?  I  will  do  all  I  can  to  make  you  happy,  and 
— you  will  not  forget  who  your  baby  is." 

She  rose.  "You  are  right.  No,  I  will  not  forget,  Sandy. 
And  when  my  people  are  here  I  shall  perhaps  be — less 
lonely.  It  is  bad  for  my  baby  when  I  am  lonely." 

She  said  good-night  with  great  dignity,  and  Sandy  was 
alone ;  alone  physically,  but  still  in  a  room  so  crowded  with 
ghosts  as  to  seem  full  of  an  inarticulate  hum  of  voices.  The 
first  thing  he  did  was  to  write  a  letter  to  Sister  Marie-Rose, 
enclosing  a  kind  note  for  Maggie  Penrose.  In  the  note  he 
expressed  his  regret  to  hear  of  her  illness,  and  the  forgive- 
ness she  asked  for.  He  added  that  he  could  not  come, 
owing  to  important  family  matters,  and  remained  her  old 
friend,  Sharrow. 

On  re-reading  his  note  he  nearly  burned  it,  its  mild  tone 
seemed  to  him  so  absurd,  so  unlike  himself.  Then  he  re- 
membered her  kindness  to  him,  and  sealed  and  stamped  the 
letter. 

Maggie  Penrose  was  gone,  she  no  longer  belonged  to  his 
life.  She  was  to  him  as  dead  as  his  father  and  mother,  the 
old  Vicar,  his  great-uncle,  as  Syd. 

He  had  closed  the  episode  with  a  few  belated  kind  words. 
He  need  never  give  her  another  thought. 

But  a  week  later  he  found  himself  in  a  little  white- 
washed room,  high  up  near  the  snow-covered  mountains  of 
La  Schlucht,  sitting  by  a  narrow  bed  whereupon  lay  all 
that  was  left  of  Maggie  Penrose. 

"But  after  writing  that  letter,  Sandy,"  she  asked  him, 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  437 

her  hot  hands  clasping  his,  "why  did  you  come?  Was  it 
just  my  telegram  of  Saturday?  Because — because  you 
wanted  a  change  of  thought,  is  that  it  ? " 

Her  hollow  blue  eyes  sparkled  for  a  minute  in  ghastly 
reminiscence  of  their  old  light  flash. 

''Yes.    How  did  you  know?" 

' '  My  dear,  I  love  you.  I  know  all  about  you.  Besides, ' ' 
she  added  laughing,  "Mr.  Dingle  writes  to  me  and  tells  me 
all  the  news!" 

"Dingle!" 

"Dingle.  Now  listen,  Sandy.  I  am  grateful  to  you,  oh, 
so  grateful  to  you  for  the  letter.  That  meant  real  kindness. 
And  you  can  never  know  how  glad  I  am  to  see  your  dear, 
ugly  face  once  more." 

' '  Poor  Maggie !  do  you  care  that  much  ? ' ' 

' '  That  much !  And  so,  being  a  dying  person,  I  am  going 
to  take  the  privilege  of  all  dying  persons,  and  be  a  perfect 
nuisance ' ' — she  broke  off  to  cough,  and  he  waited  in  silence 
until  she  could  resume.  ' '  Your  sister-in-law  is  clever,  I  am 
sure,  but  she  is  not  good  for  all  her  church-going,  I  know. 
Dingle  has  written  things  quite  innocently,  and  I  have 
pieced  the  whole  thing  together.  Isn't  this  something  like 
it?" 

She  raised  herself  a  little,  arranged  the  frills  of  her 
bed- jacket  about  her  bony  wrists,  and  went  on  with  a 
cheery,  piteous  smile. 

"You  and  dear  nice  Mary  Wymondham — you  are  en- 
gaged, or  nearly " 

"If    Dingle    writes    you    that,    he    is    an    impertinent 

old " 

"Hush!  He  didn't.  I  have  guessed  it.  Mary  is  good, 
but  she  is  also  a  dear !  And  she  always  cared  for  you. ' ' 

Sandy  rose  impatiently.  "Nonsense,  Maggie,  she's  never 
cared  a  rap  about  me." 

"How  cross  you  are!     And  how  childish!    However,  I 


438  S  H  A  R  R  0  W 

daresay  you  expected  tears  and  moral  regrets  and  you  get 
instead  this — so  I  forgive  you — oh,  Alexander !  Sit  down, ' ' 
she  added,  suddenly  fretful ;  "  I  am  very  weak,  and  I  can 't 
waste  the  little  breath  I  have.  I  tell  you,  Mary  always 
loved  you.  And  she  was  always  worth  a  round  dozen  of 
Violas.  Then  you  ask  her  to  marry  you.  Poor  soul !  I  can 
imagine  her  happiness.  And  I  have  been  glad  for  it.  She 
deserves  even  you,  Sandy." 

"Even  me!" 

' '  Don 't  be  bitter.  Oh,  my  dear,  my  poor  love,  you  don 't 
know  yourself!  Well,  Madame  Maria  Paz  doesn't  like  the 
engagement.  After  it>  not  before,  she  tells  you  her  news. 
And — she 's  to  have  a  Spanish  doctor,  a  Spanish  nurse,  and 
a  Spanish  maid.  H'm!" 

"Who  told  you  this?" 

"Never  mind  you  that.  Or,  yes,  I'll  tell  you.  Dear  old 
Dingle !  Puddif ant  told  him,  and  one  of  the  servants  with 
a  clear  keyhole  ear  told  her.  Oh,  it's  all  perfectly  authen- 
tic, I  assure  you.  Now  I  must  ask  you  a  question.  Has  she, 
your  sister-in-law,  asked  you  to  stop  seeing  Mary?" 

"No,  of  course  she  hasn't." 

"Then  she  will.  She  has  told  you  to  break  your  engage- 
ment, of  course — because  she  is  providing  you  with  an 
heir." 

Sandy  did  not  answer.  He  was  very  sorry  for  the 
woman  who  lay  dying,  but  he  was  angry  with  her  for  inter- 
fering in  his  affairs. 

' '  Have  you  broken  your  engagement  ? ' '  persisted  Maggie, 
gently,  coughing  a  little. 

' '  I  am  sorry,  Maggie,  but  I  cannot  discuss  Miss  Wymond- 
ham  with  you — or  with  anyone." 

He  rose  and  went  to  the  window,  where  he  stood  looking 
out  into  a  scurrying  snow. 

There  was  a  long  pause,  and  then  Maggie  said  faintly, 
her  eyes  closed:  "Very  well,  Sandy;  I  am  sorry.  But  you 


SHARROW  439 

are  so  blind,  so  blind.  I  fooled  you  as  easily  as  I  could  have 
fooled  a  baby,  so  why  should  not  this  other  woman  ? ' ' 

"Why  should  my  brother's  widow  wish  to  fool  me?" 

A  nun  came  in  and  put  a  stick  or  two  into  the  hideous 
little  iron  stove  in  the  corner.  Then  she  lighted  a  lamp  on 
the  base  of  which  were  painted  crude  red  flowers,  and  went 
quietly  out. 

"Why  should  your  brother's  wife  wish  to  fool  you? 
Because  she  likes  Sharrow;  the  consequence  of  being  Mrs. 
Sydney  Sharrow  of  Sharrow ;  because  she  came  of  common 
people  and  prefers  gentlefolks;  because — oh,  Sandy,  don't 
be  a  perfect  idiot!" 

He  laughed  a  little;  the  interview  was  so  different  from 
the  one  he  had  pictured  to  himself  during  his  hurried  jour- 
ney. It  seemed  strange  that  a  dying  woman  should  jeer  at 
him  and  call  him  names. 

"If  she  wished  to  fool  me,  then,"  he  returned,  "in  what 
way  could  she  ?  I  am  giving  her  an  allowance  in  any  case 
and " 

"In  what  way  could  she  fool  you?  Well — I  am  getting 
very  tired,  Sandear — I  beg  your  pardon  for  using  Syd's 
name  for  you — it  just  came  somehow — I  can't  talk  any 
longer.  Say  good-by  to  me.  Forgive  me.  I  loved  you!  I 
love  you!" 

"Good-by,  Maggie.     Poor  little  Maggie!" 

She  kissed  his  hand,  and  looked  up,  her  eyes  swimming 
in  tears.  "Sandy — make  her  see  Turner.  Don't  believe 
in  anything  until  she — has  seen  an  English  doctor." 

She  said  no  more,  and  after  looking  at  her  very  sadly 
for  several  minutes,  he  left  the  room  and  the  hospital  and 
drove  back  through  the  snow  to  his  train. 

"Make  her  see  Turner — don't  believe  in  anything  till 
she  has  seen  an  English  doctor." 

The  suggestion  was  monstrous,  absurd ;  the  prompting  of 
a  fevered  mind.  He  hated  Maria  Paz,  and  the  arrival  of 


440  SHARROW 

her  cousins  and  old  Catalina,  two  days  before  his  departure, 
had  not  diminished  his  loathing  of  everything  connected 
with  her.  Pedro,  the  doctor,  was  even  worse  than  Miguel, 
and  his  use  of  a  toothpick  never  seemed  to  cease.  Carme- 
lita,  Maria  Paz'  sister-in-law,  was  a  common,  inquisitive 
little  woman  with  no  teeth,  and  Catalina  he  had  detested 
before. 

They  were  all  horrible,  and  all  horribly  inappropriate  to 
Sharrow ;  but  they  did  not  make  of  Maria  Paz  a  cheat  and 
liar  of  the  lowest  description.  He  would  forget  poor  Mag- 
gie's suspicions. 


CHAPTER  LXXII 

THEY  ordered  dinner,  the  night  of  Sandy's  return,  for 
eight,  but  Sandy  was  late,  and  it  was  nearly  half-past  nine 
before  they  had  finished  dinner  and  sat  again  in  the  pleas- 
ant, old-fashioned  drawing-room. 

Mary  was  wearing,  womanwise,  a  new  frock,  in  honor 
of  what  to  her  was  distinctly  an  occasion.  It  was  a  dark 
blue  frock  of  softest  crepe,  and  over  it  she  wore  a  fichu  of 
ancient,  cobwebby  lace  that  had  belonged  to  Cyrilla — her 
grandmother. 

Mary  had  anticipated  admiration  from  Sandy  that  never 
had  come,  and  her  story  of  the  gift  of  the  lace  to  her  grand- 
mother by  his  great-uncle,  during  the  period  of  their  brief 
engagement,  remained,  through  lack  of  query,  untold. 

Sandy  was  distrait  and  rather  silent.  He  looked  a  little 
older,  a  little  more  tired  than  he  had  looked  the  last  time 
she  saw  him;  there  was  a  weary  expression  in  his  eyes. 
Mary,  of  course,  wondered  what  had  happened,  but  she  said 
nothing.  He  had  told  her  that  he  had  gone  to  France  to  see 
a  friend  who  was  dying,  but  she  knew  no  more,  and  she 
asked  no  question. 

After  dinner  he  built  up  the  fire  and  arranged  her  com- 
fortably in  an  armchair. 

The  night  was  stormy  but  without  rain,  and  the  wind 
howled  dismally  in  the  cedar-trees.  By  her  little  fireside 
Mary  Wymondham  sat,  her  quiet,  capable  hands  folded,  her 
eyes  resting  comfortably  on  her  guest's  face. 

She  was  glad  to  see  him ;  so  glad  to  have  him  there  with 

441 


442  SHARROW 

her,  and  having  given  him  the  best  dinner  she  could,  she 
waited  for  him  to  say  what  he  had  to  say  to  her.  What  it 
was  she  had  no  idea,  but  she  knew  that  it  was  there  in  his 
mind.  If,  she  decided,  he  was  going  to  ask  her  to  marry 
him  soon,  she  would  do  so.  She  saw  no  reason  for  delay, 
and  coyness  she  hated. 

"Mary — something  has  happened." 

"What  it  is?" 

The  wind  ground  the  cedar  boughs  against  the  roof  and 
skirled  in  the  chimney. 

Sandy,  who  sat  with  an  unlit  cigarette  between  his  fin- 
gers, listened  for  a  minute.  Then  as  comparative  silence 
fell  on  the  little  house,  he  went  on: 

' '  It 's  this.    Maria  Paz  is — going  to  have  a  child. ' ' 

"To  have  a  child?"  Mary  spoke  rather  stupidly,  it  was 
as  if  he  was  telling  her  that  some  unmarried  woman  was 
going  to  have  a  child.  Syd  had  been  dead  for  what  seemed 
to  her  a  long  time ;  a  so  long  time  that  his  quality  of  hus- 
band, and  possible  father,  had  gone  from  her  mind. 

"But  Sandy "  she  began,  and  then  understanding 

came  to  her. 

"Poor  Syd,"  she  exclaimed.  "What  a  pity  he  did  not 
live  to  see  it!" 

"Yes,  it  is  a  pity.  She  told  me  only  a  day  or  two  be- 
fore I  went  abroad.  It  is  to  be  in  January." 

Mary  raised  her  eyes  and  looked  at  him  in  obvious  ab- 
sent-mindedness. Plainly,  she  was  counting. 

"I  am  surprised,"  she  said  presently  without  affecta- 
tion. 

"So  was  I — although  I  know  very  little  of  such  mat- 
ters." 

"And  then  this  is  why  the  new  cousin  and  the  rest  have 
come." 

"Yes.  She  wanted  them — and  of  course  I  could  not  say 
no,  now." 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  443 

Mary  smiled  at  his  wisdom.  "I  see.  I  hope  it  will  be 
a  boy,  Sandy." 

He  lighted  his  cigarette,  and  then,  leaning  back  in  his 
chair,  began  to  talk  quietly.  The  fire-  and  lamplight  fell 
full  on  his  thin  face,  filling  its  hollows  with  shadows, 
accentuating  all  its  lines,  until  it  looked  almost  like  a 
mask. 

Mary  watched  it  pitifully  while  he  settled  himself.  Then 
the  meaning  of  his  words  began  to  reach  her,  and  her  eyes 
stopped  seeing. 

"I  promised  Syd,  as  you  know,"  he  began,  "that  his  son 
should  be  my  heir;  I  had  no  intention  of  ever  marrying, 
and  I  thought  it  only  right  to  let  the  boy  know.  You  will 
remember  this,  Mary." 

' '  Yes,  I  remember, ' '  she  murmured. 

"I  was  glad  that  Syd  had  married — you  will  also  remem- 
ber our  plans  about  the  Barrington  girl.  My  life  had  been 
such  that  I  preferred  to  remain  a  bachelor,  to  let  myself 
seem  as  old" — he  paused,  seeking  for  correct  expression — 
"as  old  as  I  really  was.  Syd  was  learning  all  about  the 
place;  he  was  growing  to  love  it;  I  think  his  love  for  his 
wife  was  broadening  him,  and  teaching  him." 

"I  think  so,  too." 

"And  he  would,  I  know,  have  brought  up  his  son  in  the 
way  fitting  to  his  position." 

There  was  a  long  pause,  after  which  he  threw  his  ciga- 
rette end  into  the  fire  and  lit  another. 

"Syd  was  so  young,  such  a  child  himself,  that  I  daresay 
he  didn't  think  much  about  his  heir,  but — I  did,  Mary. 
I  thought  about  the  little  chap  a  lot.  I  used  to  dream 
about  him.  I  always  liked  babies, ' '  he  added  with  a  touch 
of  shyness,  "and — well,  it  seemed  to  me  better  that  Syd's 
son  should  have  the  old  place  than  that — that  mine  should. 
Syd's  boy  seemed  bound  to  be — right,  and  I  am  so  old " 

"You  are  four-and-thirty,  Sandy." 


444  SHAEEOW 

"Yes.  Well — then  Syd  died.  You  know  what  his  death 
meant  to  me.  There  was  little  enough  of  youth  left  in  me 
already,  God  knows,  but  with  him  the  rest  went.  For 
months  nothing  mattered  to  me,  nothing.  I  didn't  even 
really  mind  having  Don  Antonio  in  the  house.  It  didn't 
seem  the  same  house,  or  the  same  place,  at  all." 

"I  know;  I  saw." 

"If  you  had  not  been  here,  and  so  good  to  me,  dear 
Mary,"  he  went  on,  looking  at  her  with  a  grave  affection 
that  hurt  her  horribly,  "I  could  hardly  have  stayed  here. 
I  should  have  cleared  out — gone  very  far  away  somewhere 
— it's  an  instinct  some  people  have." 

' '  I  know  that,  too,  Sandy.  I  Ve  got  it  myself.  In  fact, ' ' 
she  added  with  a  smile,  "I  seem  to  know  all  that  you  have 
said  and — possibly  all  that  you  are  going  to." 

Sandy  shook  his  head.  "No,  you  don't.  I  am  going  to 
do  an  abominable  thing;  I  couldn't  do  it  to  any  other 
woman  in  the  world  but  you,  and  that  is  because  you  are 
my  friend.  Mary,  now  that  Syd's  boy  is  coming,  I  don't 
want  to  marry.  I — I  don't  think  I  could." 

The  boldness  of  his  words  was  merciful  to  her;  any 
excuses,  any  signs  that  he  believed  her  to  need  pity,  or 
even  consideration,  would  have  been  too  much  for  her. 

As  it  was,  her  way  was  clear. 

She  took  from  her  finger  the  ring  he  had  given  her  and 
held  it  out  to  him. 

Her  hand  was  quite  steady  in  the  lamplight,  and  she 
smiled,  a  kind,  almost  motherly  smile. 

"My  dear  Sandy,  I  quite  understand,  and  I  quite  agree 
with  you.  You  must  not  break  your  word  to  Syd.  His  boy 
must  be  your  heir  and  you  must  bring  him  up  yourself. 
Let's  forget  all  about  our — engagement — and  just  go  back 
to  our  dear  old  friendship." 

Sandy  took  the  ring  mechanically,  and  slipped  it  into 
his  pocket. 


but- 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  445 

Thanks,  Mary.    I  knew  you  wouldn  't  mind,  of  course, 


' '  Of  course  I  don 't  mind.    Let 's  say  no  more  about  it. ' ' 

He  was  conscious,  in  the  midst  of  his  relief,  of  a  faint 
pang  of  disappointment.  He  had  never  thought  she  loved 
him,  and  he  was  glad  that  she  seemed  to  have  no  vanity  for 
him  to  hurt,  but  he  seemed  to  have  lost  something.  It  oc- 
curred to  him  that  it  was  rather  absurd  to  be  missing 
something  he  had  never  possessed,  and  yet  he  did  miss  it. 

If  he  had  loved  Mary  the  chances  were,  he  knew,  that 
he  would  have  married  her  in  spite  of  Maria  Paz'  revela- 
tion ;  he  knew  that  he  was  not  of  the  self-abnegating  kind. 
And  he  knew  that  he  would  never  have  dreamt  of  marrying 
Mary  but  for  the  necessity  of  providing  himself  with  an 
heir. 

He  was  not  guilty  of  that  extremely  foolish  thing,  retro- 
specting  sentimentality,  but — he  was  a  little  disappointed 
by  Mary's  bland  acquiescence  in  his  change  of  plan. 

When,  a  few  minutes  later,  he  took  himself  off  to  the 
station  to  meet  Ben  Frith,  she  shook  hands  with  him  quite 
calmly  and  told  him  with  a  smile  to  come  soon  again.  "I 
shall  be  glad  to  see  Ben,  too,"  she  added.  "Bring  him  to 
lunch  one  day." 

What  happened  when  the  key  had  turned  in  the  lock  of 
her  bedroom  no  one  but  Mary  herself  ever  knew. 

The  next  day  she  was  much  the  same  as  usual,  and  when 
Ben,  whose  visit  was  a  short  one,  came  to  lunch,  he  said 
he  found  no  difference  in  her  except  that  her  face  was  a 
little  thinner. 

A  week  later  Mary  dined  at  the  house  and  at  dinner 
made  an  announcement.  "I  have  a  bit  of  news  for  you 
all, ' '  she  said,  ' '  and  I  hope  you  will  be  sorry.  Guess  where 
I  am  going?" 

No  one  answered  for  a  moment,  and  then  Maria  Paz 
looked  up.  "To  Cape  Town." 


446  SHARROW 

Mary  started.  "How  on  earth "  she  began,  her  face 

full  of  rather  comical  amazement,  but,  Ben  saw,  also  sud- 
denly pale. 

"Your  sister  wrote  to  someone,"  Ben  said,  rudely  inter- 
rupting Maria  Paz  in  her  projected  reply.  "I  forgot  who, 
but  I  think  Mrs.  Puddifant — or  was  it  Mrs.  Dingle  who 
told  me — however,  I  do  envy  you.  It  will  be  a  delightful 
trip.  Will  you  stay  long  ? ' ' 

Mary  looked  at  him  steadily.  ' '  Oh,  no,  only  for  about  six 
months.  My  sister's  children  were  not  well  enough  to  come 
back  on  this  visit,  but  she  couldn't  let  her  husband  come 
alone,  as  he  is  very  delicate.  So  she  is,  of  course,  anxious 
to  get  back  at  once,  and  I  have  been  with  her  only  a  fort- 
night. So " 

"So  you,  who  have  funked  going  out  alone,  are  seizing 
the  opportunity  to  go  with  her !  I  see.  I  envy  you,  it  will 
be  ripping,  getting  away  from  our  English  winter." 

Sandy  watched  the  two  speakers  curiously.  There  was 
something  strange  in  their  manner.  They  seemed  to  have 
drawn  mentally  close  together,  to  be  facing  some  enemy, 
their  backs  to  a  wall.  He  could  not  understand. 

Then  he  glanced  at  Maria  Paz,  and  saw  in  her  face  a 
look  of  amused  malice  almost  amounting  to  malignancy. 
*As  he  watched  her,  she  spoke. 

"I  did  not  hear  from  anyone  that  you  were  going  away. 
Mr.  Frith  was — favored.  But  I  knew."  Again  Sandy  won- 
dered. 

He  hated  the  idea  of  Mary's  going,  and  after  dinner  he 
told  her  so. 

"You  are  deserting  me,  Mary,"  he  began  abruptly,  as 
she  and  Ben  and  he  sat  in  the  Small  Hall.  "Why  are  you 
going  just  when  I  shall  need  you  so  ? " 

She  smiled.  "You  will  not  need  me,  Sandy;  you  will 
be  busy,  and — in  January  you  will  be  less  lonely, 
remember!" 


SHARROW  447 

But  to-morrow  these  Spanish  brutes  are  coming  back — 
it's  far  worse  than  loneliness — and  I  have  got  to  depend 
on  you, ' '  he  went  on  with  the  frank  avowal  of  dependence 
that  it  rather  pleases  strong  people  to  make.  He  felt  in- 
jured, and  showed  it  plainly. 

Again  she  smiled.  "Nonsense!  Well,  I  have  a  bad  head 
and  think  I  '11  be  off  home.  Ben,  be  a  dear  and  walk  back 
with  me,  will  you?" 

Sandy  stared.  Again  he  had  the  feeling  that  they  were 
joining  forces  against  some  enemy;  but  this  time  it  seemed 
that  he  himself  was  the  enemy.  He  sat  by  the  fire  when 
they  had  gone,  miserably  lonely. 

Meantime,  at  her  house  door  Mary  said  suddenly  to 
Ben,  ' '  Thanks,  Ben.  It  was  good  of  you. ' ' 

Ben  blinked  up  at  her.  "I'm  always  good — but  I  don't 
know  what  you  mean  this  time." 

' '  Yes,  you  do.  You  know  perfectly  well.  He,  of  course, 
told  you  that — that  our  engagement  is  at  an  end,  and  you 
saw  that  I  am  going  away  because  I  am  hurt.  Well — I 
don't  mind  your  knowing,  old  Ben.  He  hasn't  the  slightest 
idea,  bless  him,  but — I  am  hurt,  badly." 

They  clasped  each  other's  hand  and  stood  in  silence  for 
a  minute.  Then  Mary  added,  simply:  "I  have  always 
loved  him,  and  I  always  shall.  But  for  the  moment  I  am 
done;  I  must  go  away." 

Ben  walked  slowly  back  to  the  house,  to  find  Sandy  mute 
and  a  trifle  surly. 

"What's  wrong?"  the  little  man  asked  with  an  air 
of  good  cheer  very  vexing  to  his  host,  as  he  meant  it  to 
be. 

"Matter?    Nothing.    What  should  be?" 

"I  don't  know,  I'm  sure.  I  thought  perhaps  you  were 
cross  with  Mary  for  going  away.  It  does  look  rather  like 
deserting  the  ship,  you  know." 

"Rot,"  Sandy  growled  with  a  frown.    "Mary  never  de- 


448  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

serted  anything  in  her  life.     And  I  have  no  right  to  be 
cross  with  her." 

Ben  indulged  in  a  grimace  of  delight,  unseen  by  his 
friend.  "Of  course  you  have  no  right  of  any  kind  over  her 
now,  but — oh,  well,  never  mind;  I  was  mistaken,  that's 
all.'' 


CHAPTER  LXXIII 

MARY  was  to  sail  the  sixteenth  of  October,  and  the 
twelfth  had  come. 

It  was  a  cold,  clear  day,  and  Mary  Wymondham,  who 
had  been  making  some  good-by  calls  among  her  poorer 
friends  in  the  village,  was  coming  home  when,  just  outside 
the  "Sheepshearers'  Arms,"  she  met  Sandy. 

"Mary,"  he  called,  before  he  had  quite  come  up  to  her, 
' '  I  have  news  for  you ;  the  most  wonderful  news. ' ' 

"What  is  it?" 

They  shook  hands  and  he  turned  back  with  her. 

"Maria  Paz  is  going  to  Barcelona  the  seventeenth.  Until 
— until  her  illness  is  over ! ' ' 

Mary  stood  still.    ' '  To  Barcelona !    But  why  ? ' ' 

' '  I  don 't  know.  I  haven 't  seen  her  since.  I  heard.  She 
is  at  White  Shirley  this  afternoon  with  Carmelita,  and  I 
have  only  just  heard.  It  seems  that  old  Catalina  got  into 
a  temper  with  Jarvis  and  blurted  out  to  him  how  glad  she 
would  be  to  get  away — Jarvis  told  Mrs.  Puddifant,  and  she 
told  me." 

"But,  Sandy — ought  the  baby  not  to  be  born  here?" 

He  drew  a  deep  breath.  "I  don't  know.  I  suppose  so, 
but  for  the  minute  I  can  feel  nothing  but  relief.  Think  of 
having  the  house  clear  of  the  lot  of  'em,  Mary ! ' ' 

They  walked  rapidly  on  through  the  gathering  darkness. 
Mary  was  annoyed. 

"I  can't  understand  it  at  all — unless  it's  just  a — a  kind 
of  freak." 

449 


450  SHARROW 

"It  must  be  that.  Of  course,  I  might  insist  on  her 
staying  here,  but — well,"  he  burst  out  with  sudden  vehe- 
mence, "I  simply  can't.  I  shall  be  so  glad  when  they  have 
gone. ' ' 

'/They'll  be  back  soon,  remember." 

"I  know.  But — well,  you  can't  ever  know  how  I  have 
been  dreading  the  winter;  without  you,  too;  that  made  it 
much  worse." 

"Did  it,  Sandy?"  She  could  not  keep  a  certain  dry- 
ness  out  of  her  voice,  and  he  turned. 

' '  Of  course.  Didn  't  you  know  it  ?  Did  you  think  I 
liked  your  going  away?  I  say — there's  the  car — and  its 
stopping  at  your  house." 

They  hurried  on  and  reached  the  gate  just  as  Maria  Paz, 
very  bulky  in  a  big  fur  coat,  was  going  in. 

' '  How  do  you  do  ? "  she  said  politely.  ' '  I  was  coming  to 
say  bon  voyage  to  you." 

It  was  only  the  fourth  or  fifth  time  she  had  ever  called 
on  Mary.  Mary  led  the  way  to  the  drawing-room,  and 
ordered  tea,  while  she  explained  the  latest  developments 
of  her  plans ;  how  she  was  to  meet  her  sister  in  town  the 
next  day  but  one. 

"How  glad  you  must  be!"  Maria  Paz  said,  sitting  very 
close  to  the  fire.  "It  will  be  a  delightful  journey." 

"Yes,  I  think  I  shall  like  travelling." 

"When  I  am  well  I  shall  go  somewhere,"  Maria  Paz' 
eyes  were  lowered  as  she  spoke,  and  her  face  was  its 
stillest. 

"When  you  are  well?  But  you  are  going  to  Barcelona  at 
once ! ' ' 

Mary  set  down  the  teapot  and  stared  as  she  spoke. 

The  Spaniard  did  not  move  but  she  slowly  raised  her 
eyes.  ' '  What  did  you  say  ? ' '  she  asked. 

"I  said — only  that  I  understood  you  were  going  away 
now,  at  once. ' ' 


S  H  A  R  R  0  W  451 

"Ah,"  Maria  Paz  drew  a  deep  breath.  ".Who  told  you 
that— lie?" 

"I  did,"  answered  Sandy. 

"And  who  told  you?" 

He  stood  with  his  arms  folded,  watching  her.  He  had  a 
keen  conviction  that  some  plot  was  to  be  unravelled  as  he 
stood  there;  that  a  crisis  had  come. 

' '  One  of  my  servants  told  me.  Your  maid  Catalina  told 
her.  You  are  going  to  Barcelona  on  Friday.  And  you  are 
going  to  have  your  baby  there. ' ' 

Maria  Paz  rose.  "Good.  It  is  true.  I  am.  And  as 
soon  as  I  am  able  to  travel,  I  will  bring  my  son  back  to  you, 
Sandy.  I  was  too  lonely.  I  tried  to  stay,  but — I  couldn't. 
Sandjr,  you  do  not  much  mind?" 

Her  voice  was  very  gentle,  her  eyes  seemed  larger  than 
he  had  ever  seen  them  as  she  looked  imploringly  at  him. 

"No — I  don't  mind,"  he  said.  "There  is  no  harm  in 
your  going  to  your  own  country  for  your  illness. ' ' 

Mary  rose  suddenly,  and  switched  on  all  the  electricity, 
changing  the  light  from  a  soft  one  to  a  glare. 

"As  soon  as  you  are  well  enough  to  travel,"  she  said, 
slowly,  looking  full  into  the  other  woman's  face,  "you  will 
bring  back  your  son  here.  What  if  it  happened  to  be  a 
daughter?" 

Maria  Paz'  face  gave  one  convulsive  movement,  and 
then  was  as  still  as  if  frozen. 

"I  can  understand  your  hoping  that,"  she  answered, 
"but  it  will  not  happen.  I  am  lucky." 

"If  it  is  a  daughter  it  will  not  be  Sandy's  heir;  his 
cousin,  Alexander  Sharrow,  the  present  heir-at-law,  will 
have  everything  on  Sandy's  death;  or  if  he  dies  first,  then 
his  son." 

' '  My  baby  is  a  son. ' ' 

Sandy  drew  back  from  the  hearthrug.  He  felt  that  he 
was  a  spectator  only,  that  he  had  no  place  on  the  stage  of 


452  SH  ARROW 

the  strange,  tense  little  scene  that  was  being  enacted  be- 
fore him. 

Mary,  her  furred  hat  still  on  her  head,  had  taken  off  her 
coat  and  stood,  her  well-built  frame  clearly  defined  in  the 
blaze  of  light.  Her  face  was  a  little  set,  and  red  patches 
glowed  in  her  cheeks.  She  was  very  angry,  and  it  occurred 
to  Sandy  that  he  had  not  seen  her  angry  for  years. 

Opposite  her,  her  small  white  face  smaller  and  whiter 
than  ever,  among  her  dark  furs,  Maria  Paz  stood,  shapeless 
in  her  big  coat.  The  two  women  eyed  each  other  as  duelists 
might.  And  Sandy  watched. 

"What  you  say  is  dramatic,"  Mary  answered  her  antag- 
onist, "but  it  is  nonsense.  No  one  on  earth  can  be  sure 
about  a  child's  sex  until  it  is  born." 

"I  am  not  dramatic.    It  will  be  a  boy." 

Maria  Paz'  voice  grew  in  monotony  as  Mary's  temper 
colored  hers. 

"You  think  I  am  going  to  Barcelona,  and  that,  if  I  have 
a  girl,  I  can  sell  it,  and  buy  a  boy  to  bring  back. ' ' 

Sandy  shrank  from  the  cold  contempt  in  the  Spaniard's 
voice. 

Mary  made  a  long  pause. 

Then  she  said  very  slowly.  "Yes.  I  did  think  that  at 
first.  But  now  I  don't.  Now  I  know  that  I  was  wrong." 

They  had  both  forgotten  Sandy's  presence.  There  was 
in  their  battle  something  so  intensely  feminine,  so  beyond 
his  ken,  that  he  himself  felt  nearly  as  if  he  wTere  not  there 
because  he  ought  not  to  be. 

' '  Oh — you  know  you  were  wrong.  Well — let  me  tell  you 
this,  Mary  Wymondham,  good,  honorable,  perfect  Mary — 
that  I  am  right  in  what  I  know  about  you.  You  are  going 
away  because,  when  Sandy  broke  his  engagement  when  he 
found  he  no  longer  needed  you — you  have  not  forgotten  his 
reason — you  could  not  bear  to  stay  here.  It  is  because 
you  love  him.  You  love  him  who  does  not,  never  did,  love 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  453 

you.    You  love  a  man  who  asked  you  to  marry  him  solely 
because  you  are  healthy." 

Suddenly,  before  Sandy  could  speak,  Mary  had  laid  her 
strong  hands  on  Maria  Paz'  shoulders  and  stripped  her 
loose  sable  cloak  from  her.  It  lay  like  a  vast  soft  shell  on 
the  floor  at  her  feet,  and  out  of  it  rose  her  small  figure,  thin 
and  straight,  almost  boyish. 

"Do  not  struggle,  you  impostor,"  Mary  said  in  a  hoarse 
undertone.  "You  can't  move  until  I  allow  you  to.  This 
is  the  twelfth  of  October,  you  say  your  baby  is  coming 
in  January.  It  is  a  lie.  You  are  not  going  to  have  either 
a  boy  or  a  girl.  As  long  as  you  live  you  cannot  have  a 
Sharrow  child.  Now  go ! " 

Releasing  her  prisoner,  Mary  drew  back,  and  as  she  did 
so  her  eyes  fell  on  Sandy. 

"You  see?"  she  cried,  to  him.  "You  understand.  At 
home  she  wore — clothes  that  hid  her,  but  going  out  with 
her  big  cloak  on  she  thought  she  was  safe !  Do  you  see  ?  " 

' '  Yes,  I  see.    Maria  Paz " 

Maria  Paz  looked  at  him.  "She  is  a  fool,"  she  said,  "a 
fool,  and  an  old  maid."  Then  suddenly  she  had  seized 
the  old  silver  candle  snuffers  that  Sandy  had  known  ever 
since  he  was  a  child  and  struck  Mary  repeatedly  in  the 
face  with  them.  Even  after  Sandy  had  caught  her  she 
managed  with  marvellous  strength  to  give  Mary  another 
blow.  And  as  she  struck  she  screamed  and  cursed  in  Span- 
ish, biting  at  Sandy 's  hands,  and  kicking  him. 
.  It  took  all  his  strength  to  master  her  and  when  finally  he 
did  so  and  turned  to  Mary,  whose  face  was  streaming  with 
blood,  Maria  Paz  again  beat  him  by  going  off  into  a  kind 
of  hideous  convulsion. 

Together  he  and  Mary  worked  over  her;  they  gave  her 
water,  bathed  her  face,  forced  a  little  sherry  down  her 
throat,  and,  when  at  last  she  was  still,  Sandy  carried  her 
to  the  car,  explained  to  the  chauffeur  that  she  had  fainted 


454  S  H  A  R  R  O  W 

but  was  now  better,  saw  the  car  disappear,  and  went  back 
into  the  house. 

Mary's  right  eye  was  badly  swollen,  and  her  face  was 
cut  in  several  places.  She  was  pale,  but  she  smiled  when 
Sandy  entered. 

"Oh,  Sandy!" 

"Mary — I  am  so  ashamed " 

"No.  I  am  only  thankful  that  we  found  out  in  time. 
She  'd  have  fooled  you. ' ' 

"Of  course  she  would." 

He  stood  in  silence  for  a  moment.  Then  he  said, ' '  Mary, 
don't  go  to  Cape  Town." 

She  sat  down,  holding  a  wet  compress  to  her  eye. 

' '  Nonsense — of  course  I  must  go.  Did  you  think  it  your 
duty,  because  of  what  she  said,  to  ask  me  again  to  marry 
you?" 

"No." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  did.    Well,  it  isn't.     She— lied." 

Then  suddenly  she  lowered  the  handkerchief  and,  forget- 
ting her  cuts  and  bruises,  looked  up  at  him. 

' '  No,  she  didn  't,  Sandy,  not  in  that — and  I  won 't,  either. 
I  do  love  you,  my  dear,  I  always  have.  But  I  won 't  marry 
you,  and  I  am  going  to  the  Cape. ' ' 

"Mary — dear  Mary — there  is  no  one  in  the  whole  world 
of  whom  I  am  so  fond  as  I  am  of  you." 

"I  am  sure  of  that.  But  I  won't  marry  you.  I  couldn't 
try  that  experiment  again.  It — it  hurt  too  much.  But  we'll 
always  be  friends.  Now  you  must  go,  for  I  must  try  to 
patch  up  my  wounds.  Good-by.  I'll  see  you  before  I 
leave,  I  suppose." 

They  shook  hands,  and  he  left  her. 

He  walked  to  the  house,  entered  by  the  moat  garden  door, 
and  went  straight  to  his  own  rooms.  He  did  not  come 
down  again  that  night.  And  Mary  Wymondham  sailed  for 
Cape  Town  on  the  sixteenth. 


CHAPTER  LXXIV 

IT  was  raining  and  snowing  at  once,  the  roads  were  a 
porridge  of  thick  brown  mud,  the  trees  looked  piteously 
wet  and  neglected  in  their  nakedness. 

Sandy  stood  at  the  library  window  looking  out  into  the 
darkness.  An  hour  before  his  son  had  come  into  the  world. 
He  had  already  seen  him,  already  felt  the  strange  feeling 
as  if  his  bones  were  turning  to  water,  experienced  by  some 
men  at  the  first  sight  of  their  first-born. 

Mary,  his  wife,  was  well ;  she  had  refused  to  be  treated 
as  an  invalid ;  she  had  smiled  and  given  her  baby  from  her 
own  arms  into  its  father's.  And  now  Lord  Sharrow  was 
alone,  trying  to  realize  his  great  happiness. 

He  was  very  happy ;  to-night  was  Christmas  eve.  He  had 
been  married  for  over  a  year.  Mary  had  come  back  after 
what  seemed  to  him  an  endless  absence  of  six  months,  and 
quite  simply  he  had  told  her  of  his  grand  discovery. 

"I  love  you,  dear,"  he  said.  "Will  you  marry  me?" 
And  he  did  love  her  with  a  deep,  quiet  affection  that  satis- 
fied him  completely. 

And  it  had  grown,  this  affection,  as  affection  will  when  it 
is  based  on  respect  and  a  community  of  interests. 

In  the  light,  as  he  stood  by  the  window,  Sandy's  face 
looked  a  very  different  one  from  the  face  we  knew.  The 
lines  were  there  forever,  of  course,  but  there  was  a  new 
softness  about  his  ugly  mouth,  a  new  look  in  his  eyes. 

He  rarely  brooded  now;  he  never  did  so  deliberately, 
and  his  remembrances  of  the  sad  things  in  his  past  were 

455 


456  S  HARROW 

softened  by  his  present  peace.  So  there  he  stood  looking 
out  into  the  night,  while  his  new-born  son  lay  sleeping 
upstairs  in  the  room  in  which  his  great-uncle  had  been 
born  and  died. 

And  presently  the  rain  ceased,  the  clouds  broke,  letting 
a  very  faint  glow  of  moonlight  through. 

Sandy  smiled.  He  was  too  happy  to  form  articulate 
thoughts,  but  it  was  good  to  him  that  the  clouds  should 
have  parted  just  then.  From  where  he  stood  he  looked 
across  the  lawn  towards  the  west  side  of  the  park,  and 
presently  there  came  a  sound  of  distant  voices,  and  from 
the  darkness  of  the  trees  issued  forth  a  little  crowd  of 
people. 

There  were  about  twenty  of  them,  and  of  these  two  or 
three  were  women.  They  came,  talking  in  undertones, 
across  the  lawn  in  the  pale  moonlight,  and  were  about  to 
turn  off  towards  the  servants'  quarters,  when  Sandy  called 
softly : 

"Is  that  you,  Dingle?" 

"Yes,  Mr.  Sandy,"  came  the  old  man's  voice,  and  he 
forgot  to  correct  his  mistake. 

' '  Come  this  way,  will  you  ? ' ' 

There  was  Dingle  and  his  fat  daughter,  Sally ;  there  were 
a  Puddifant,  two  Linters,  and  old  Bustard,  the  village 
patriarch. 

They  came  and  stood  under  the  window,  and  old  Dingle 
made  a  speech. 

"We  have  been  waiting  for  news  at  the  'Sheep- 
shearers','  "  he  said,  tears  standing  on  his  cheeks,  his  voice 
shaking,  "and  it  came  half  an  hour  ago — one  of  the  stable 
boys  brought  it — and — we  drank  his  health,  my  lord,  and 
yours,  and  then  my  girl  Sally  suggested  we  should  come 

and — and  tell  you "  He  broke  off,  and  Sally  went  on, 

her  arm  through  his,  for  he  was  failing  of  late. 

"We  know,  my  lord,  that  you  will  not  take  offense — 


S  H  A  R  R  O  W  457 

that  you  don't  mind  our  having  the  feelings  of  friends  as 
well  as  of — tenants." 

Sandy  cleared  his  throat. 

"Wait  a  moment,"  he  said.     "I  will  fetch  him." 

Five  minutes  later  the  little  band  had  trooped  quietly 
into  the  study,  the  window  was  shut,  and  Sandy  stood  be- 
fore them  with  his  son  in  his  arms. 

Tears  stood  on  his  lined  cheeks  as  he  bent  over  the  little 
bundle. 

"My  friends,"  he  said,  "here  is  my  son." 

Then  they  all  tiptoed  towards  him  and  looked  at  the  queer 
little  crumpled  face  of  their  future  lord. 

"Yes,  he  is  beautiful,  isn't  he?"  Sandy  agreed,  proudly. 
"He  weighs  over  eight  pounds.  He  is  a  particularly  fine 
boy." 

After  a  pause  he  went  on:  "I  don't  know  how  to  tell 
you  how  I  feel  about  him  and  about  Sharrow — but — I  shall 
try  to  make  him  a  very  good  man,  my  friends,  so  that 
when  his  time  comes  he  may  be  a  good  friend  to  your  chil- 
dren and  their  children." 

Old  Bustard,  the  shepherd,  who  had  not  yet  spoken,  sud- 
denly put  his  knotted  hand  to  his  eyes  and  began 
to  weep. 

"God  bless  'im,"  he  quavered,  "and  you,  your  lordship, 
and  'er  ladyship,  too.  God  bless  the  lot  of  ye !  I  'm  ninety 
I  am,  and  Vll  never  be  a  friend  to  my  grandchildren, 
'cause  I  'aven't  got  any,  but  I'm  glad  my  old  eyes  'as 
seen  'im." 

Sandy  bent  again  over  his  son,  and  as  he  did  so  Sally 
Dingle  stepped  forward  and,  with  her  hand,  protected  the 
baby's  face. 

' '  Mr.  Sandy !  Mr.  Sandy ! "  she  exclaimed,  quickly, ' '  don 't 
let  tears  fall  on  a  baby's  face.  Every  tear  means  a 
grief  for  him." 

"Oh,  Sally!" 


458  S  H  A  B  R  0  W 

The  fat  widow,  with  her  pretty  smile,  turned  her  palm 
uppermost,  and  in  it  something  glistened. 

"I  caught  them,"  she  declared;  "it's  all  right." 

"Thank  you,  Sally." 

Then  Sandy  bade  his  friends  good-by,  and  carried  his 
son  back  upstairs. 

As  he  came  down  again,  he  stood  suddenly  still  on  the 
stairs,  and  caught  at  the  balustrade.  He  felt  suddenly 
giddy. 

And  as  suddenly,  as  he  stood  there  in  the  perfect  silence 
of  the  night,  his  face  changed. 

The  Feeling  had  come  back. 


THE   END. 


(1) 


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